Mr. Mom

Cathie took off yesterday afternoon to Saugatuck, MI with a few friends for the weekend, so the kids and I are doing the weekend solo. Last night we had football practice and I brought Emily along with us. She was playing with the other coaches daughter having fun, but I couldn't figure out why she kept yelling over telling me that her feet were dirty. With practice still going on, I yelled back that it wasn't a big deal. By the time practice was over, I figured out what was going on. Emily had found a mud puddle and pretty much covered herself in it. We got to the van and I couldn't find any towels, so I stuck her in a large plastic bag. Yes, I put her in a bag. She sat in her car seat with her lower torso in a bag. We went and picked Madeline up from her friends and Madeline cut to the chase, with the words that every solo-Dad loves to hear, "Dad. You put her in a bag. That's kinda weird. Mom wouldn't do it that way." It didn't stop us from getting ice cream and staying up late watching a movie.

This morning, the kids let me sleep in, we had a big breakfast and left to go on our Grandparent-Marathon, covering a total of 7 grandparents of various generations. We headed to Dewitt and hung out with my Mom and Dad (Grandparents #1 and #2). We hung out, talked, and played baseball in the back yard. From there, we went a couple miles over to Cathie's parents (Grandparents #3 & 4)for a big Memorial Weekend party. Cathie's Mom's parents (the kid's Great Grandma and Grandpa Dunckel, #5 & 6) are up from Texas and were at the party along with a bunch of Cathie's family. (Even at 5, Emily's a little slow on the uptake with the whole grandparent thing... She hasn't quite figured out that they have names. She refers to them as: Grandma with the pool, Grandma without the pool, Grandma from Texas and Grandma without all of her fingers). The weather was beautiful, and the kids swam for 5 hours straight until we all were fried. Emily kept finding person after person to play with her by going up to total strangers and asking "Will you play with me." including Cathie's Aunt Maureen (who Emily referred to as "Grandma's Sister"). My personal highlight was my brother-in-law Ed doing a flip with two giant parrot nipple clips attached to him.

My father-in-law just got a new giant inflatable hamster wheel. It was almost impossible to actually stay on the thing for more than a second, but it worked great for target practice. We took turns seeing who could hit it from the farthest out from the diving board.

Cathie's parents asked the girls to stay for the weekend, so Nate and I headed home to begin our days of bachelorhood. We stopped at my Grandma Smith (Grandparent #7 and the one that's missing a finger... Emily really doesn't get the finger thing. She still prays at dinner time that it will grow back) and spent some time there. My grandma took the time to say "I told you so" about her Tigers, who she's a huge fan of and has been telling me since 1985 that they'll be great again. A friend of hers pulled some strings and is having her name announced at the Tigers/Yankees game tomorrow as one of their biggest fan, who still doesn't like the Yankees after all these years.

We came back home and began the "Night of the Y chromosome". We stopped and got some pizza, grabbed out caffeinated pop and hooked Halo 2 up to the big screen and proceeded to kill a lot of alien scum. After lots of candy and other assorted junk food, we're still up and going strong, nursing our sunburns. Cathie is back tomorrow, so tomorrow is house cleaning day. We learned last time that it doesn't pay to try and keep the house clean as we go. We do the dishes as they get dirty and save the rest of the house cleaning for the last minute. Should be interesting with just Nate and I around to clean.