Edited below: sock monkey hat source!

I’m not sure why I thought that chasing the hyper-toddler up and down the icy streets of Montreal was a better option than wrangling her at home, solo, while the husband was in this fair and freezing city on business, but I did.

I forget why, exactly.

I mean, is it really more interesting to holler WATCH OUT FOR THE BABY! in French, as she barrels toward francophone elderly, as opposed to shrieking it in English at anglophone elderly? Only marginally.

That said, the francophone elderly do give her candy. Although I think that’s more about the sock-monkey hat that we bought here, than it is about any greater inherent generosity on the part of old Montrealers. And, end of the day, the random pieces of maple syrup candies (which don’t exactly, you know, calm the child down or anything) don’t quite balance out the exhaustion that comes from chasing – while near-on six months pregnant – the maple-syrup-jacked creature across sheets of ice and mounds of packed snow. I am, after all, not the one being offered the candy.

That said, though…

… there is the whole business about having club sandwiches (avec frites) and a trio of creme brulees delivered to your room, whenever you want.

And a bathtub the size of a swimming pool. With a viewing window. So that you can watch the SAG Awards dubbed into French while you wash bits of syrup candy out of the child’s hair, or your husband can take pictures of you, whichever seems more amusing at the time.

And then there’s that sock-monkey hat.

Maybe this a vacation, after all. Of a sort.

Edited to add… I purchased the sock monkey hat HERE. They have an online shop. Direct source can be found HERE. Note that they do MUPPET MITTENS, too. And for Canadians: Mr. Dress-up FINNEGAN mittens. No Casey, but still: AWESOME.