Lies I need to hear

I was pushing Emerson on the swings at the park today while juggling Ethan and generally looking exhausted and disheveled. A mom swinging with her daughter started chatting with me and asked how old Ethan was and then how far apart the two kids are. Her kids are the same age apart but are older now - her younger one looked about four.

"People tell you it gets easier but they're lying," she informed me.

"But they are such kind lies," I said, deciding to continue believing them anyway.

Florida's Oldest

There's more to Florida than old people. There's old places as well. We checked out two of Florida's oldest establishments this past week.

Columbia Restaurant is Florida's Oldest Restaurant (1905). We went to the Ybor City location to have dinner with a friend of Eric's who was in town for a meeting, and several of her colleagues joined as well. It is a monstrously large place - I believe the restaurant is a full city block - and Eric said that it seats 1,500 people for dinner. It is Spanish food, which makes sense, since they were some of the first non-native people in Florida. It could be considered a tourist trap but the food was actually quite good and those who had the made-at-the-table sangria (extra $2 for the Sangre de Toro wine) reported it was worthy as well. They have two nightly flamenco shows and we dined in between, catching the just beginning of the late show on our way out. At the risk of sounding a bit geezer-y myself, I was kind of glad we weren't seeing the whole show because it was very loud, what with all the stomping.

After a beautiful afternoon at Philippe Park on Saturday, the four of us went home the long way with a stop at Dunedin Brewery, Florida's Oldest Craft Brewery (no year given). The brewpub-chic main restaurant area was full so we found seats in "the nook" (official name, with a sign on the wall), a shabby-not-chic secondary bar area. We ordered the sampler so we could taste six of the beers on tap that day and had to explain to Emerson several times that the small glasses did not mean it was all for him. My favorites were the Apricot (I'm a sucker for apricot-flavored beers) and the Pale Ale. They also had a Nitro Stout and a Nitro Pale, which are carbonated with nitrogen like Guinness to give a creamy head. The Red and Brown ales were fine but not remarkable. Again here we left just as the live music was getting started and while I don't know for sure, I expect it would have been louder than my current grandmotherly taste in live entertainment.

Other old things I am interested to check out: oldest Starbucks and oldest old person's home.

Shot of Wild Turkey

Took a walk around the neighborhood and spotted these guys hanging out. Note to self: if times ever get hard for us financially, these birds don't seem like they would be very hard to catch.

Things that have happened since Ethan was born

Contrary to what this blog would suggest, life did not screech to a halt when Ethan was born. We have been enjoying a steady stream of visits from friends and family, enjoying a range of holiday celebrations and in our downtime we are adjusting to life as a family of four. A lot of what we have been up to is well-documented on Emerson and Ethan's blog. Here's a few of the other things that happened that you won't read about there:

• Kindle plus newborn breastfeeding plus husband watching older child = lots of time to read. I read The Hunger Games trilogy obsessively and finished it far too quickly. I know it is not great literature and I am not sure I liked the third book at all but there is something about those books that is seriously addictive and weeks later I am still jonesing for a fix. I'm not sure the movie will help but I look forward to seeing it with all the local teenagers. I have also read some other books but nothing worth mentioning.
• Two nights out: Eric and I (and Ethan, who slept the whole time) have been out to dinner twice so far. Once just us and once on a double date with neighbors who took us to their favorite gastro-pub where I got to drink a Boddingtons, a favorite beer of mine from my days living in London. Eric ordered the fish and chips but then swapped his regular "chips" for sweet potato fries for reasons I have yet to understand.
• Birding! Starting in our own backyard, we are getting to know the birds of Florida. Our pond frequently hosts anhingas, little blue herons, wood storks, white ibis and more and we have a front row seat to watch them eating, swimming, strutting around the grass and flying around. We even went on a bird walk in Lettuce Lake Park with a guy who is apparently a bird expert and about twenty senior citizens, many of whom commented on how nice it was for Ethan to be getting such an early start at birding.
• A long journey completed: Two and a half years after we started watching it we finally finished the entire series of Battlestar Galactica. It didn't have to take that long but we got distracted after watching season one and only just returned to it a few months ago. I mostly enjoyed the show, though at times I found it too realistic to be a good escape - too many gut-wrenching decisions and dealing with sadness, loss and life not being the way you want it to be.