four walls or filthy hands

Since Justin arrived home Saturday afternoon we've gotten out of the house a lot. Thank goodness, I was going a little nutty the weekend before stuck looking at the four walls of our apartment.
Saturday night we ate at the Corner Tree Cafe; a great little vegetarian bistro down the street from our place. It's perfect because it's open all day so we can eat at 4:30PM and have the entire place to ourselves. The food is fresh and amazing. The spinach and feta croquettes are great as well as the walnut tofu burger and the fried Parmesan polenta cakes with mushroom sauce. The great news is that the girls love the food. Both times we've gone we order the soup special and Addie's happy. She loves soup, any kind really. Bella gets super antsy here because they don't have highchairs. It definitely dictates what Justin and I wear to this place, knowing we are required to hold her during her meal. Since we are alone while we eat it isn't too big of a deal when Bella wants to wander a little. The best part of this meal is the bill. For drinks, starters, entrees, and deserts for our family of 4 (3.5 really since Bella eats off our plates) the meal cost $22. For the quality, you can't beat that price.Today we decided to escape our ever so familiar four walls and wear the kids out. This morning we headed to the park to play before Bella's nap and after her nap we spent a few hours at the Museo Pambata (The Children's Museum). Addie hated most everything there and had a serious case of fearful anxiety with any new exhibit we looked at. Before we even really saw what it was she declared "she didn't like it" "didn't want to do it" and "she wanted to get out of here!". The straw that broke the camels back was the human body exhibit. Admittedly, it's run down, kind of creepily lit, and a bit overly focused on the bodily functions that kids think are funny. For example; the display showing you step by step what happens to the food you eat. At the end, the display shows you the final stages of the food as it leaves the body. Seriously? Gross! Addie really had troubles with the gigantic farting buttocks. It totally freaked her out but made my husband and I giggle. It's hard to get the scale of this photo but Addie's head stood probably just about mid-butt. It came with a ridiculous explanation too. Only in the Philippines.

This is when Addie started to panic a little bit and scream that she wanted to leave and go home. We ran through the rest of the exhibits. She only calmed down at the end when she got to climb a tree house like they build in Davao. She also enjoyed the musical instrument display. Bella loved the whole thing. She's at that stage where the idea of fear is non-existent.The museum turned out to be torture for Addie and fun for Bella. Justin was cool as he always is but, for me it sparked this crazy Mom fear about germs and filth. Like most public places in the Philippines, the museum is frequented by tons of people and kids and really needed a good disinfectant wash. To my surprise and irritation, I turned into a super nagging Mom, cringing as Bella would touch something and then touch her pacifier or put a display item in her mouth. When Addie gets shy, nervous, or upset she puts her fingers in her mouth and chews her nails and I just couldn't stop swatting at her hands and telling her to keep them out of her mouth. She finally called me out on my nagging (at 3-she was like "stop saying that to me"). I felt terrible! Visions of stomach viruses and flu bugs all over everything we were touching were swirling around in my head as I watched my children pretty much lick their way through this grimy place. It was maddening for me. I'm normally not like this and actually don't worry too much about them putting their hands in their mouth or getting dirty but today the germaphobe side of me came out with vengeance.
Hunger drove us to Greenbelt for People's Palace Thai food for an early dinner again at 4:30PM. The first thing we did was take the girls to the comfort room (restroom) to wash hands. It was a normal, crazy, eat-so-fast-you-get-heartburn kind of dinner with our two little girls. There was lots of fussing and demands, rice everywhere, empty milk glasses that needed filing, toys to distract since the littlest girl's belly fills the fastest and more dropped silverware than I could count. Totally normal. Addie impressed us with eating her entire dinner of chicken satay and fried rice. I was impressed with my ability to keep a hand on Arabella's plate the entire time I ate my meal just to be sure she wouldn't throw it off the table. Two dinners out with the girls two nights in a row was probably not the best idea even if the lemongrass ice cream kept them happy. We are always sure to apologize for the mess and leave an extra tip for the guys who have to clean up after our craziness.