Dopplegangers in the bakery

We met our dopplegangers yesterday, at a really nice bakery restaurant.

We try to get out every weekend, with baby A in the sling, just to have some fun time. We don't go far, usually the restaurant up the hill from our house. This time it was a 15 min. bus ride to a close-ish part of town. The sushi place there was closed (another lesson learned), so we went for the bakery I've bought goods at before. Great food, just haven't eaten a meal there before.

We sat down at the one free table in the front room. Well positioned with access to getting up and around for baby bouncing purposes. Even next to a couple with their own baby in a sling on dad's chest. We smiled at them ("hey, we both have babies in slings and we're out at a restaurant" smile and nod). I asked the one thing I know in German about babies - "how old?"

"Three months"

"Her, too." I said.

Then they asked something and I had to switch to English. M came back from hanging our coats up and we started chatting. Postdoc in science and her husband, Swiss, just moved back from my home town. Had a similar birth experience. And we wound up chatting, with a break for us to order some killer cordon bleu...like, the real stuff, fried. YU-um. We spent about 2 hours there, talking about how similar it was to be from another country, having a baby in a foreign land. Apparently the "foreign land" part explains a lot more than things being specific to Switzerland or the US. Even down to those annoying people who don't seem to understand that when you tell them you don't speak English/German very well, they shouldn't just repeat the same sentence, complex terms and all, same speed. They don't even slow down and increase the volume anymore, apparently. Ha ha.

It was really nice.

Also a reminder that baby A is way more alert and fidgety than a normal 3 month old. But still really nice to meet people. We exchanged emails, and made a new couple of friends, just like that, out of the blue. Just because we decided to get bundled up, pack all our myriad things for a trip out in the cold and snow, and trudge out there on a Saturday afternoon. Lovely.

I even got the courage to try breastfeeding the little wiggler when the other woman fed her baby. Of course, things went much more, um, vigorously and less quietly with baby A, but that's her way. And she did feed a significant amount. My first time in a public place with her. Score one more on the slightly increased freedoms list.

It was a good day.

The evening involved watching parts of a kind of disappointing Olympic closing ceremony, but hey, you can't ask for more than one really nice thing to happen to you each day to be happy. And we had already had ours.