adventures in parenting

So the title of this post is a reference to the 80's movie Adventures in Babysitting. However, when I told co-worker Peter that I was babysitting this weekend, he corrected me and said, "No Dave.....you're parenting." (Pete's a blunt kinda fellow). Hence the edit.

You see, we were hit with two wedding to attend, two weekends in a row. This weekend, it was Tam's cousin. Next weekend, my sister. So rather than subject Alex to excessive travel or a lengthy stay away from home, it was decided the wife would fly solo this weekend and I would stay home with the young'un and the critters.

Things so far (knocks wood) have been pretty good. There was a brief episode last night, where she woke up crying, but she eventually went back to sleep. (Whew!) This morning she woke up roughly her normal time, and the morning routine seemed to be falling into place. Until it was time for her nap. Apparently, she was having none of it. So, I bundled her up and we hit the road. It allowed the opportunity for her to have a short nap in the van, and then we had some quality daddy/daughter shopping time. We hit Future Shop, the suit store, Wal*Mart and I even took the little one for her first visit to the comic book store so she could get her baby geek on. Early exposure is the key. After all that activity and excitement, we returned home, I plugged a bottle in her mouth, and she was out for the count for a few hours.

Oh wait. Correction. That last part was what I envisioned happening. In reality, she was not ready for a nap (like I was). So....it was playtime. For a couple hours. Then we watched a little tube and she zonked out on me for about 1/2 hour. The rest of the evening was pretty standard. Feeding...webcam....skipped the bath, bottle and bed. She went down just after 7pm. It's 10:30 now....I've had a chance to watch a bit of t.v. and even a movie (The Queen, which was very good, and yet another illustration in my changing movie tastes). So far....so good.

Let's hope it stays that way. And we'll see what tomorrow brings.


(Editor's Note: I neglected to mention one exciting bit during our shopping excursion. While taking lunch at McDonald's in Wal*Mart, a ginormous wasp perched itself on Alex's cheek, just below her eye. It was a tense couple seconds, but I managed to flick it.....flick it good......and send it on it's way. Crisis averted. That is all.)