Busy Evening

You parents with a brood of kids, and from my perspective that just means two or more, are going to call me a whiner, but it's been a busy evening here on Jefferson Street.

Got home about 5:30 from work. TB had a tee ball game at 6:00. Got his uniform out of the dryer and hurled it at him, ran upstairs and got dressed myself, fussed at LBB because she wasn't ready yet, and headed out to the garage to search for TB's ball glove.

Pause a moment: before you read between the lines and think I'm steamed as I came in the door and found my son not yet in his uniform, well, yes, in fact I was, BUT, I realize that in spite of the fact that my wife works at home, she often has a busy workday, too. Also, she takes care of a million other things around here, including letting my boy play with his friends at the playground after school most days. Well worth it. Still, I thought we were in a time crunch, so I was in a minor twist.

Turns out, we made it right on time.

Game went great, as they usually do in games where they don't keep score, so we stopped for a Slurpee on the way home.

Oh, by the way, I passed the Tuna Treat sign again, and as it turns out I quoted it a bit wrong the other day. What it actually says is:

BEAT THE HEAT
TUNA TREAT

Which makes even less sense.

When we got home, I had a couple emails to answer.

And I wanted to mow the lawn tonight, because tomorrow evening I want to play golf, and then Wednesday we have tee ball again, and Thursday is TB's real birthday, and then Friday we have tee ball awards and ice cream, and the mowing needs to be done before the weekend because after the day long rain yesterday, it's going to be a miserable project by Saturday.

Woe is me.

And then the other thing is that LBB had book club tonight, so she headed out as soon as we got home.

Well, the boy had supper before the game and a Slurpee for dessert, so he was in good shape. I was hungry but determined, so I started up the mower to at least get the front done. It was about 7:45 at this point. Then, all sorts of children start appearing from their various houses. TB is bugging me to go across the street. OK, go, but watch out for that bus coming down the hill, and we are going in for a bath in five minutes! Five minutes, you hear me!

Finished the front yard, anyway. See, I have a double lot, so it takes an hour to mow the whole yard, or at least two to do a good job with the weed whacker, etc.

So the front yard is done. By the time I coaxed TB back over here from the neighbors, it's 8:30, so now he needs a bath and stories, and I'm starving by this point. A Bud helped calm my appetite, so we read a fun book about pirates and chatted about the school day and then it was lights out.

This was one of those moments you want to remember, though: I went to give him a kiss goodnight on the cheek. Sometimes, now, he's too big a boy for that, so he rolls over and says "Ewwwwww!". This time, he just turned away a little so I missed him, but I figured he got the point, so I went to turn off the light and turn on the radio (he likes soft hits "Sunny FM" for his overnight listening).

So as I'm walking away he says, "Daddy, you missed."

"I know. Good night, Sweetie".

"Try again," he says.

Huh? So I went back and he stuck out his little cheek and let me give him a peck, and then he gave me a huge spontaneous hug, and, awwww, shucks, my big swimmer, ball-player, favors his Momma, soon to be first-grader, is still able to melt his Daddy into a puddle with the simplest little gesture.

He went right to sleep then, so, I'm working on some mac and cheese now, at about 9:45.

See it was a busy night here on Jefferson Street. So now, all you parents, let me have it for complaining!