Sunday suburbia

It's not often that I spend time outside of the city, but yesterday I made a special trip to visit Gigi, whose kid count went from 0 to 3 in the blink of an eye. Since we finished graduate school, Gigi has been blessed by the arrival of a 3-year-old daughter and twin 6-month-old sons.

Seeing as how she was responsible for three kids and a sick husband, I traveled out to the East Bay to spend some quality family time. And I brought a cake!

The kids are adorable. So cute and so congenial and easygoing. Gigi is truly lucky that she has such agreeable kids who don't seem fussy at all. Plus, she was able to nonchalantly nurse the babes whilst carrying on a conversation, thanks to her hooter hider.

But it was such a different environment for me. I'm not often around young children (let alone three!) and it was kind of overwhelming! Most interesting to me was how Gigi and her husband just let them go and the kids minded themselves, playing with toys, falling asleep, crying a bit, etc. Meanwhile, the adults ate a lovely risotto and caught up on old times. I couldn't keep my eyes off the little ones, but the parents seemed sort of oblivious to them unless they started to really make a fuss. I guess you get used to kids if you're around them 24-7.

I also decided that if I ever wanted to have kids, I'd have to become more diligent about vacuuming. And cleaning my house.