Vienna Beef

Yesterday, I took The Baby to the Vienna Beef Factory Store & Cafe for lunch. It's one of our new favorite destinations because it's on the way to the Treasure Store, it's fast, and we can split an order of 2 Chicago-style dogs and fries for $4.25. The Baby loves hot dogs. Perhaps because it's at the factory, the dogs often have unsealed-at-the-ends casing, which actually works out well for me, because that is the part that The Baby has the most trouble eating, and I can just peel it off.

He sat in a regular chair pulled up to the table, although two people offered to get me a highchair for him. I assured them that he'd be fine in a chair, and he was. He looked so little and so grown-up at the same time, sitting there in his rockstar guitar t-shirt, baggy Boden jeans, and baby Cons.

We brought the paper boat of fries with us, and he ate them happily while sitting in his stroller at the Treasure Store as I looked through the racks for jeans and pants for me. I ended up with a pair of Buffalo by David Bitton jeans, bright green J. Crew pants (that I plan to cut down into Bermuda shorts), and pale green Limited dress pants (with nobody inside 'em!*). All for a mere $13. By the time we got upstairs, however, The Baby was done with the Treasure Store. He was only slightly impressed with the original Fisher-Price, made in the U.S.A., plastic horses ball I found in the housewares aisle.

The rest of my day was fairly busy as well: I volunteered to prep art projects for hanging for St. Bart's art fair on Friday, so I spent the morning stringing fishing line into different fish art pieces for hanging. I took all three kids to Target after school to buy new Big Girl Underwear for The Girl. I did laundry. And I went to book club at Elephant Thai (my entree was great, but I didn't really like the chive dumplings) and the Chocolate Shoppe (weird service, good ice cream -- I tried about 4 different kinds before settling on maraschino cherry) in Edgebrook (cute neighborhood, seemed more like Evanston than the city).



* Does anyone else recite snippets of Dr. Suess books in their head at odd moments? The reference above is to his story, "What Was I Scared Of?)