This may sound crazy -- in fact, I can hardly believe it myself -- but our girls had never had ice cream cones until this weekend. They'd had ice cream, mind you; in bowls and on plates next to slices of "happy birthday to you" (their term for birthday cake). But they'd never experienced the sweet, drippy joy that is an ice cream cone on a summer day.
So, while we were out on the Cape this weekend I was hell-bent on making it happen. The friends we were staying with recommended the perfect spot: Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville, which has been in operation for seventy-five years. That's since 1934 for those out there who, like me, are quick-arithemetic-challenged. (When I saw the sign, I said to Alastair "Wow, so they've been around since, like, the twenties! Or, wait, the forties?") It's apparently a Cape Cod institution, and a quick web search suggests that they invented chocolate chip ice cream and were/are beloved by the Kennedys. So, it seems we chose quite a memorable spot for this important milestone. And, of course, we documented it on film:
Yes, we even had the foresight to throw a couple of bibs into the diaper bag. Which is rare.
There were plenty of flavor choices, of course, but we suggested chocolate to keep things simple, and Clio immediately latched on and said yes, she wanted chocolate ice cream. Elsa, however -- in a typical case of twin expectation switcheroo -- started saying, Clio-like, that she wanted "clean" ice cream. We said yeah, yeah, it'll be clean chocolate ice cream, but that didn't fly. "Do you want vanilla ice cream?" I asked her. (As if she has any idea what vanilla means.) And she said, close to tears, "No! Just ice cream!" We thought that might be fun; to go into an ice cream parlor with 30 flavors and a line out the door and say, "Two ice cream cones, please." But we just ordered two chocolate cones and hoped Elsa wouldn't notice. She didn't.
Elsa and clean ice cream cone. (She was very excited once we explained that she could actually eat the cone, too.)
When the shop got suddenly crowded, the ice cream was quite melty, and Clio's cone several times came perilously close to a woman's very white, very expensive-looking beach cover-up dress, we decided to take the operation outside. Clio kept offering us all bites of her ice cream, which by then was down to the cone, which didn't seem to interest her as much. (She takes after her mother -- I've never been a huge fan of the cone itself.) The poor kid was punished for her generosity when Elsa accidentally chomped down on her finger in the process. Eep! Here's hoping that she won't have negative associations with ice cream cones for the rest of her life. Seems doubtful.
Want a bite?
* *
Subscribe to this blog and get notified each time a new post is published.
