Dad's Weekend

The Christmas Season was not the goldmine of calamity and failed parenting that I exploit like to write about here.  It was ... perfectly normal.  Great for the Eastside Gang, bad for writing.  In fact, the only real gem came from Dylan on our truck ride home from Callahan Christmas.  "Dad," she asked from the backseat, "you know how some people smell different?"  I looked at Regina.  We had no idea where this was headed.  "Sure, sweetie," I said.  "Your dad smells really different," Regina said.  "Well, Callahan Santa smelled like ... Mac & Cheese."  Whew, Mac & Cheese was my very last guess.  Cigarettes, Regret, Bourbon, Fresh Blood ... all those options ran through my head before she finished her sentence.  Mac & Cheese, I can definitely live with that one.

So that's it, that was Christmas.  But this is a tale for all the fellas (cue Young MCs, "Bust A Move").  Regina spent a weekend in Napa with her college homies and I stayed home with the monkeys.  I had a weekend planned that was packed with sledding and sleepovers and snowboarding and horseback riding.  Activities!  That's what we need to do.  And then it started raining.  And it rained.  And rained.  It rained at the sled run.  It rained at the ski park.  It rained on my dreams.  Plus, I kind of suck and switching plans.  Fortunately, Regina's good at it so when she called to check in, she offered up a few alternate plans.

First of all: Feeding.  That's a great half-day activity that keeps the kids occupied.  Couple that with "bull turnout day" and you've got an entire day packed with me figuring out how to avoid talking about what "bull turnout day" really means.  That was Day 1.

Day 2 was a little trickier.  With the sledding plans washed out, the kids got cooped up in the house pretty quickly.  Finally, during the briefest break in the weather, I piled them into the Ranger and went exploring.  We had a rogue wild boar in one of the fields, so I put them on patrol to find it.  We never saw him, but their lookout turned up two great shed antlers, so we had something to bring home.

Day 3 I nailed.  After feeding, we loaded up for Ashland to go see Star Wars.  The kids needed something to talk to their friends about at school, and we may have been the last family on earth yet to see it.  We got to Ashland a little early so I loaded the kids up on noodles and then hit the cheapest entertainment in town: The Dollar Store.  Here's a tip: if you ever need to kill an hour or so, take your kids to one.  We burned an hour, loaded up a basket full of crap, and it only cost fifteen bucks.  We bought duct tape, candy, stuffed monkeys, Hot Wheels, toothpaste, sandwich bags, and more candy.  So, with pockets stuffed with Swedish Fish, we hit the movie.  Grady, literally, was on the edge of his seat the entire time.  So much so that his seat kept springing back to the "up" position because he kept leaning so far forward.  Dylan loved it too.  How do I know?  Because for the rest of the afternoon I kept getting questions that started with, "Daddy, do you remember in the movie Star Wars ...," like we'd seen the movie a year ago, not an hour ago.  How do you overcome the post nerd-flick blues?  More sugar.  Ashland is great for its sweet shops, and we strolled for the rest of the afternoon and hit up a few.

Regina came home to a nearly clean house, and kids who were still in one piece, so I think she was impressed.  She may not be so thrilled after their next visit to the dentist, but hey, I can always blame Mac & Cheese Santa for filling their stockings with too many sweets.