Babycino: This drink turned by baby into a monster
I THINK we’ve broken the baby.
They’re words I’ve uttered more than once in the past year and a half since becoming a parent, but this past weekend I really think we’ve done it.
And the cause? The humble babycino.
For the uninitiated, a babycino is a frothy cup of milk that’s become an accessory in the hands of inner-city toddlers whose parents buy too many flat whites.
They come in several styles. There’s the basic warm frothy milk. Or there’s the treat variety, sprinkled with chocolate or including a bonus marshmallow on the side. We’ve been sticking with the basic variety (surely there’s nothing wrong with giving him a cup of milk), yet we fell victim to that frothy goodness.
Our usual weekend routine involves us grabbing an early morning take away coffee, then taking him to the playground to run around.
But several days of heavy rain have meant no play outside, so we’ve taken him into the cafe instead. And inside the cafe he can’t run around, so we’ve bought him a milky treat to enjoy, giving us time to down our coffees.
Yesterday the sun was shining. So, like usual, we headed to the cafe and ordered our take away coffees. Only this time was different. The kid expected he was getting a treat alongside our caffeine fix.
He didn’t. We reasoned that we couldn’t get him into the habit of getting a babycino every time we got coffee (coffee is necessary for tired parents, OK??)
But the kid didn’t see it that way.
He just saw his parents clutching their Campos cups, enjoying their morning treat, while he was left out of this lovely morning routine.
No amount of playground fun would distract him from the fact he was angry. And he was going to let us know about it.
After screaming at us in the park for 10 minutes, we gave up. We opened the gate to let him out and he looked at us, then at our coffees, and walked off in a huff like a teenager who didn’t get their way.
He is 19 months old.
We threw away the remainder of our coffees, chased him through the park and tried to turn the morning around.
He wasn’t having a bar of it.
We should have just gone home. But we needed him to be calm while we picked up some groceries. So in desperation we stopped by the bakery and got him a hot cross bun. An even better treat than a babycino. And while that bought us 20 minutes of calm while we shopped, I have a dreaded feeling it’s going to make the next trip to the cafe even tougher.
Kid 1, Parents 0.
If you’ve got advice on how we can still keep up our coffee routine and lose the toddler attitude, please let me know on Twitter @katecalacouras
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