Timeout now for something that is more likely to appear on my wife’s blog.
Two years ago when my wife was stuck in bed pregnant with our first son (little mister), I spent many many hours with my daugher (curly miss). We played together, traveled around town in the stroller, ran errands, and talked a lot. We really bonded a lot during that season. I love my son, but we’ve never had the same kind of opportunity. I see him a lot of course, but his sister is always around too. It’s just different. I feel like we never have as much chance to connect on a certain level.
Tonight though, we decided to have respective guys and girls nights out. Wifey took curly miss to the mall to do who knows what. Little mister and I decided to do manly men things. We walked straight down to Bucer’s smoke room, lit up pipes and each had a pint of Guiness.
Except that little mister is only 2.5 years old, so we didn’t do that.
First, we needed to take charge, be responsible and get necessary chores out of the way. We scooped the very stinky cat box and then fired up some candles to fumigate the bathroom. Then we transferred laundry to the dryer. Little mister helped me throw each article in, declaring each one to be “wet!”.
After all this work, we needed a snack. Mister got out peanut butter and Ritz crackers form the little cupboard. Hit the spot! We practiced rubbing our sleave in the peanut butter on the table too.
With the minivan taken by the women, we resorted to travel in the “Stinky Banana Car”. It’s the only way to fly. I threw mister in the back seat and away we went. First stop: The service station to pump up the chronically flat front tire. Next to the gas station were 3 teenagers in full-plate armor whacking the crud out of each other with heavy metal swords. Part of the local Dungeons and Dragons reenactment crew or something. They looked like they were having a good time though so we resisted the urge to throw +6 attack lightning bolts at them as we drove by. Restraint of power is a kingly thing. I want my son to be virtuous like this.
After we were sufficiently inflated, it was time to become scientists. Little mister has been very interested in hills lately. Going UUUUUP the hill and DOOOOOOWWWWN the hill. It’s a study of gravity. On 6th street in our town is a very steep hill. The kind you avoid when it’s icy. We went UUUUUP and DOOOOOWWWWN this hill several times, observing the effect on our stomachs.
This reminded us that we hadn’t had dinner yet and we were starving.
I asked Mister: “Do you want to go to the grocery store and get some dinner?”
Mister: “doh-nut!”
Me: “You want a donut for dinner?”
Mister: “white one!”
Me: “You want a white donut for dinner? How about some chicken nuggets?”
Mister: “Nooo!! Doh-nut!”
Me: “We’ll see….”
Upon arriving at the deli, we order a very health dish of tofu on a bed of leafy greens with a side of steamed white rice.
Well, we tried to order that, but somehow we ended up with corn dogs instead.
After that is was on to daddy’s office, where we rode the elevator and experimented with the robotic door openers. If you hit the button enough times you can make ??? happen. Little mister apparently was shooting for this.
We also took some pictures with the built-in camera at the desk.
We also commanded Mario to stomp on a few goombas. I couldn’t have done it without him actually. We make a good team.
Finally, we made our way to his favorite coffee shop where commenced a deep literary discussion on the book at hand. The book was about dinosaurs of course:
Mister: BIG ino-or!
Me: Yeah, what’s he eating?
Mister: grass
Me: How about this one?
Mister: Big horn.
Me: Yeah, he has a big cool horn.
Mister: Make box
And that was the end of our reading. On to building several different size boxes made from little foam puzzle pieces. The pieces have pictures of Pocahantus and Snow White Spider Man and Beowulf on them so that was extra manly.
Finally it was time to return home. Wow, those two hours flew by with no show-stealin’ sister around! We had a good time. Little bits of his personality I don’t usually see came out. We’ll have to do that again some time.