Beer and Babies

One. Over three years ago Chris and I took a trip to Europe. One of the places we visited was a tiny town in western Ireland called Dingle. It was a tiny, peaceful town that apparently only needs to hold court dates about once a month for roughly 30 minutes. Not too much happens in Dingle. You know, the normal stuff. Eighty-five year old men drinking pints. Local priests standing outside with cigarette and Guinness in hand. Twelve year old kid walking into a pub with his dad to watch the World Cup.

Coming from a society where drinking is poo-poo taboo until the age of twenty-one, we took notice of this pretty quickly. And we liked it. Because it was very normal in Ireland to see kids sitting in pubs. Not because their dad was a loser who totes his kids around to bars, but because people weren't going to bars simply to get drunk. People in Ireland love two things....pints and talking. The two go together, but one does not depend on the other, where as in American society, the talking doesn't take place until many pints are had. Ahhhhhhh.....

Plus one. When Isis was born we decided pretty early that Chris would not give up his love for beer brewing. Isis would grow up in a household where alcohol was used responsibly and was seen. Oh heavens no. Oh hell yes. Call it European influence, but we saw something positive in the way alcohol was viewed over there. And we have decided to adopt that viewpoint into our household.

Equals two. So a few days ago Isis and I were in the grocery store. She likes to walk beside Mommy and gently touches things on the shelves. She often picks items up then puts them back, occasionally making sure everything is straight. She usually spies trash and says "uh-oh" and tries to pick it up. On this trip we needed two things, milk and pineapple. I decided to let her carry the pineapple to keep her little hands busy. And it did. Until we wandered down the wine aisle, where she grasped a huge bottle of wine, picked it up and proclaimed, "Daddy beer!" So so proud.