The results are in and I’m a runner up in the very prestigious Nickelodeon Parents Pick for Best Washington, DC Blog.
Congratulations to A Parent in Silver Spring. They didn’t post the final vote counts. My lawyers are looking into a possible recount.
Thanks to everyone who voted for Suburban Daddy. Maybe if you had voted every day like I asked…
I will preface this post by stating clearly, for the record, that I enjoy spending time with my kids.
But I’m sure other parents out there can appreciate this, especially those with more than one kid close in age and young ones like mine. Just because you enjoy spending time with your kids, doesn’t mean you want to spend all your time with your kids.
I can’t be the only one who thinks the best part of my day is after I drop the kids off at preschool and get to my desk at work. I eat a bagel, sip a hot caffeinated beverage, catch up on the day’s headlines, and enjoy the QUIET. Oh yeah, for those co-workers who read my blog, I also get right down to work.
To put yourself into my state of mind when I get to work, check out this old post about why I love Mondays.
The second best part of my day comes after 9 hours of sitting in meetings and in front of a computer. I walk through the door and I get ambushed three times by a little person running full steam and yelling “Daaaaaaaaaaddddddyyyy!” Each one wants to play and tell me what they did during the day. All at the same time.
Well, usually that’s the case. Sometimes I walk into a scene of pure chaos and deafening noise levels. That’s when I quietly close the door and sit in my car for another 20 minutes. Just kidding of course (SuburbanMommy will read this).
Yesterday we were at Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore. Here are some pics of Thing 3. He loved the water room and riding the “horse”.
File this under hard to believe. A manager at a Burger King in St Louis told a family they had to leave because their 6 month old wasn’t wearing shoes! The baby couldn’t walk or even crawl. To borrow from John McEnroe, you have got to be kidding me.
A possible violation of the health code? There are plenty of other possible health code violations to worry about at a fast food restaurant. For example, there is our little adventure a couple of years ago that I’m still trying to forget.
For the most part, having kids makes you act more responsibly. My driving habits certainly improved when I began driving with “precious cargo” as my Mom referred to the kids in the back seat. I suppose I used to weave through traffic a little more, and drive with a heavier foot.
Another reason for the more careful driving is that driving a minivan, among other things, makes it a little harder to do those things. And I also find that the car, equipped with dual DVD screens, is one of my few opportunities to relax. Maybe not relax since I have to listen to the same shows over and over. But at least I can sit in one place and tune out the noise. So maybe I drive slower because I’m not in any particular rush to get where we’re going.
But, surprisingly, there are some riskier behaviors I have developed because of kids.
As an example, I used to shut the car off when pumping gas. After all, the sign at the gas station says to shut off the engine or a big explosion could occur. Why don’t I do it anymore?
It goes back to the previously mentioned DVD player. When the car is turned off, the player also turns off, and we need to start back at the beginning of the DVD, and wait the 60 seconds to get through all the previews and the FBI warning (why can’t they have special fast play DVD’s for kids movies?). That’s more than enough to set Thing 3 off on a crying fit that will last way more than 60 seconds and possibly set him on a fussy course all day.
So I leave the engine on when I pump gas and breathe a big sigh of relief when it’s over.
I’ve also been known to take my eyes off the road for a second, or two, or ten seconds, to pick up a dropped toy. Or to take away a toy that’s causing a fight. Or to turn around after hearing “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” just to get Thing 2 to stop saying my name like I wrote about last year.
I know there are more of you out there. What risky behaviors do your kids make you do?
Last weekend was a boys weekend.? SuburbanMommy went to NYC for the weekend to attend soon-to-be-SuburbanAunt’s bridal shower and bachelorette party.
Surprisingly, the weekend wasn’t too bad.? It was much, much better than the weekends in the winter when I was home alone.? Mainly because we can do things outside.? The Things have way too much energy to be contained indoors.
I shot some video of our weekend.? As you can see, water, spray bottles, a sprinkler, and popsicles are all we needed.
What does a 5 year old consider to be fun? Sure, there are the typical activities you’d expect – tee ball, board games, puzzles – that Thing 1 enjoys.
But there is another one you probably wouldn’t guess. He likes to write numbers on a piece of paper. He starts with 1, 2, 3 and continues until there is no more room on the paper. It’s a game to see how high he can get.
In this one he counted by two’s and got to 417. Sometimes he’ll go by three’s or fives. If he doesn’t have time to finish he’ll save it and pick up where he left off.
He’ll also flip the page over and continue writing numbers. Here is the back of the one from above.? Final tally on this one was 669. Not what you would have guessed but he really likes it and has been doing it for years.
I had a company picnic this week.? There were the usual kids activities – face painting, balloon animals, ice cream – and the featured attraction was a softball game where the company “all stars” played against a visiting team with “special guests”.? Turns out the guests were the the Jonas Brothers.
It was pretty cool even though I don’t have a clue about the Jonas Brothers, other than I’ve seen them on the Today show and know they are very popular with young girls.? I have three boys.? They care more about important stuff.? Like who gets the bigger balloon sword.? More on that later.
As I was walking out the building to pick up Thing 1 and Thing 2 for the picnic, I saw the entourage of SUV’s that was the Jonas Brothers.? I managed to snap these up close pictures with my iPhone.
Back to the balloon swords.? We waited in line, in the hot sun, for 45 minutes because Thing 2 really really wanted a balloon sword.? About 5 minutes later, all 4 swords were popped.? What a great use of time at a company picnic.
