Daddy Day Care

Paula and Camille left this morning for four days of fun in the sun in San Juan, Puueerrto Rrrrico (that’s me saying it w/ an exotic Hispanic accent), creating a bit daddy-daughter weekend. So, if anyone still checks this blog, I’m going to provide a day-by-day breakdown of our time together.

This morning when the vacationers left, Lydia sent them off in tears. Nothing a little bit of ‘Blue Dress’ couldn’t fix – so we sat together for 76 minutes as Cinderella overcame the obstacles of a wicked step-mother and two short-bus riding step-sisters, Lydia in her very own blue dress (courtesy of Grandma Kilgore) and me in my seminary garb. By the time Cinderella was putting on an ill-fitting yellow shirt on Gus-Gus, Lydia had calmed down and it was business as usual.

Besides leaving the house in pristine condition, Paula also left a list – both part of her M.O. – so the next point of order was a little trip to the grocery store, which I coupled with stop at The Home Depot for some odds and ends. At the store, Lydia’s good behavior earned her a purple Hot Wheels car from the 10 for $10 bin. She loved it. It gives me a certain sense of satisfaction to have my little girl like playing with cars, even when it ends up under shelves of Venetian blinds and dad spends five minutes moving said blinds from shelving to aisle, then taking out the planking, finding the car and returning everything to its proper place. These heroics did earn me a squeal of delight and a hug – totally worth it.

During nap time, I switched our car insurance to Progressive, killed some weeds and ate what Lydia had left of the Gummy Bears for lunch.

Post-nap, we went to the park. It was pretty awesome. During this outing, I realized that one kid is no problem after you’ve spent time with two. It’s sort of like how after two-a-day football practices make normal practice seem like a vacation. We chased some geese, threw some rocks in a pond, hit up the playground per usual, and ran fearfully away from large (and tiny) dogs. Dad ended up carrying the tricycle after the first hour, as well as the coat and juice while Lydia stalled as best she could from heading back to the car.

In true dad mode, we had some a well balanced meal for dinner – dad grilled some burgers and Lydia feasted on Kroger Frosted Fruit circles – followed w/ an after dinner show of Beast. There were plenty of tickling intermissions, usually initiated as follows:

DAD: Lydia! Are you sucking your thumb?

LYDIA: (Incoherent response since voice is muffled by thumb in mouth)

DAD: I’m gonna get that thumb!

LYDIA: NOOO!!! (Run out of living room)

Beast ended up w/ Beauty, Lydia ended up in bed. We finished the night w/ Mucky Moose; Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; A-B-C and some minimal resistance to bed time. In all, it was a great day. The house isn’t messy, but it isn’t spotless and I’m going to stay up way too late playing Xbox…but what do you expect when mom’s away?