The Wife’s computer was on the fritz last week, well, in actuality, for the last month, so we trekked out to the Tyson’s Apple store reluctantly on Saturday.  Marissa’s too large for her infant seat now, so we’ve made some modifications to our routine, expecting a newer and better stroller in the coming days.

While we know we’re a special needs family, the adjustments to the day to day life weren’t so apparent.  She’s a smidge of a thing, small for her age but still within normal growth.  Her size makes her easier to wrangle for the most part, but her development has been and continues to be slow- she’s still physically somewhere south of 6 months old in motor development.

Issues were discovered with the new chair and our routines quickly.  She’s little, so the back restraining strap on the seat needs to be loosened every time she’s removed from the carseat so the chest buckle doesn’t smash her little nose.  Not a huge deal, but inconvenient.  She doesn’t like facing the world in her stroller, so that’s a problem.

After the initial diagnosis (“Hey, cool, an iPod as an EFI boot partition for the battery tester, neat!” which made the Wife roll her eyes) on the computer  of a bad, not consumed battery, and the rediscovery of an old friend working at the store, we had about an hour to kill.  Consulting the mall map our destination was a favorite local chain restaurant, one of the Great American restaurants.  We weren’t expecting any problems.  I left explicit instructions with the hostess that we needed a table on the periphery of the restaurant as to not cause traffic problems, as the stroller would have to be parked at the table as in no way is Marissa ready for a restaurant highchair.

So, where did they want to seat us when our time came?  In the middle of the restaurant, in a booth in the center of the lane.  The stroller eclipsed half of the walkway.

I’ve been having issues with large crowds lately.  By “lately” I think I actually mean “my entire life.”  I think it’s just more than I want to deal with most of the time.  By the time the hostess tried seating us in the middle of the restaurant, I had already dealt with the throngs that perpetually mill about the Apple store, navigated a Lego Store event populated by what seemed like every child less than 10 years old in a hundred mile radius (Watch the master builders make an 8 foot tall Yoda!), and practically had to implement the great circle route to cross the mall in a Louis and Clark magnitude expedition.  I was ready to sit, get something non-alcoholic to drink and take a load off literally and metaphorically.  I wasn’t prepared to remind the hostess that no, she couldn’t use a highchair, and yes, I did ask for an edge table to make sure that Marissa wasn’t going to be bathed in seafood specialties by errant servers dealing with a new obstacle in their path.

There’s no big emotional message to be had here, no rending of garments or railing at the powers that be in this case.  The stroller incident at the restaurant is likely just one of the first adaptation events that we’re going to have to traverse in the next year.  I’ve just got to get better and more patient with the people that may not understand that she can’t sit, talk, or feed herself, even though she’s 16 months old. 

Moving on- Marissasbunny.com will reach 90,000 hits and this is the 100th post!  Thanks to everyone who comes by and reads my ramblings about Marissa on a regular basis, and thanks to the first time readers.  When I started Marissasbunny.com I had no idea that it would have more than a half dozen readers, but about a hundred of you stop by per day and peruse what’s going on, and more come via the RSS feed.  Thanks to you, Marissa has many items for her therapies, and I’ve got an outlet for all this.  Here’s to another 100 posts, and 90,000 more hits!

Short Attention Span One Line Reviews

Battlestar Galactica : I assume we’re going someplace with this season...

Civilization IV on Parallels : Works great, crash-free!  Better than Crossover.

Apple Store Service : One hour internal battery replacement?  Sweet!

Virginia Snow and Forecasters : Where’s my 10 inches of snow?

Fairfax Update

Fairfax with the Jolibee.  Yes, there’s actually a Fairfax in the Philippine Islands.  I don’t think I recognize that Starbucks drink from the US menu...

California Fairfax

CSI Las Vegas Fairfax.  Staring off towards the horizon like a different CSI show...

Fairfax with Kaylee and her physical therapist.  Kaylee is another IS kid.

I’ve got big plans for Fairfax in the next hundred posts- let’s see what we can do together!  Fairfax will be in the PI for a while longer, but Kaylee’s Fairfax is back off to Chicago with a new recipient.