Mommy left for Girls’ weekend yesterday. It is just Eric and me all weekend. Just doing guy stuff!
Friday, we played all afternoon. Lots of fun! I made pizza for dinner, and we had a picnic in the living room. We spread a blanket on the floor, poured our drinks, and set our plates full of pizza on the floor. Unfortunately, all the excitement of the picnic did not convince Eric to eat his dinner. He tried to take a first bite, but the pizza was still a little too warm. That was the end of dinner for Eric.
Eric has not been eating much recently. He refuses his favorite foods: oatmeal, soup, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs. He will only eat bananas and “snacks”. Mommy and I have decided to cut back his juice intake until he starts eating again. He has been drinking cup after cup of juice every day. We believe this may be discouraging him from eating.
After dinner, we watched some more TV until 8pm, then the TV was off. We played with cars in our pajamas until 8:30pm and then headed for bed. We read a couple books and then lights out. Eric went right to sleep. What a fun day we had! Just the two of us! It is good to have exclusive one-on-one time with Eric, although we do miss Mommy.
This morning, I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Eric certainly made up for yesterday. He ate “Mickey”, “Minny”, and another unidentified (round) pancake plus 2 slices of bacon. He was asking for more, but I did not want to spoil his appetite for lunch or dinner later on. Mommy had scheduled Eric’s final make-up for Music Class today. After breakfast, we cleaned up, got Eric dressed, and out the door to Music Class. We were running a little late, so we had to hurry. Eric was very cooperative.
We arrived to Music Class just as Miss Jenny was finishing the opening song. We crept in quietly and found a seat in the circle. Eric did very well in class today. He was well behaved and participated in the songs and activities.
We spent a couple hours at home watching TV, then I asked Eric if he wanted to help me with a project. He got very excited and said, “YES!” So, I explained to him that we can’t start a project without a clipboard. We went into the office and retrieved our clipboards. I with pencil and Eric with crayon. We went back to the family room. Our project was to finish the trim work in the family room. We would start by framing the fireplace. Eric got started right away drawing on his clipboard. I got started removing a temporary base board to be used around the fireplace. Eric ran over to help me, so I put him to work. He held the small pry bar, while I eased the board from the wall using the larger pry bar. He did a really good job! Next, we needed some measurements from around the fireplace. Eric already knows how to operate the tape measure, so I asked him to help. We measured the width and height of the fireplace and noted the numbers on my clipboard. We headed out to the shed, where I had an extra base board stored in the rafters. I got this down, and Eric helped me measure its length…”8 feet”. It was starting to rain, so we hurried back into the house with the newly retrieved building materials.
Our next step in the project involved a trip to Menards for more materials and some paint. I asked Eric to get his clipboard, so we could make a list. I added several items to the list, and I put eric in charge of “the list”. He took this reponsibility very seriously. We got shoes and jackets on, and out the door to the store. Eric kept drawing on our list all the way to the store and while we walked around the store. Since “the list” included some additional 8-foot boards, we could not take the Lincoln. As with any other time that I need to bring home long pieces of lumber, I needed to use my sport utility vehicle, my Camaro. Very sporty and it has a hatchback, which makes it very easy to load long pieces of lumber. Eric was especially excited about our project now. This is the second time that he got to ride in “Daddy’s purple car”. With “the list” complete and the car loaded, we were going home to finish the project.
Eric and I unlaoded the car and went in the house. We verified some measurements and went back out to the garage to cut some lumber. Eric stood in the far corner of the garage while I did the cutting. It was loud, so I told him to cover his ears with his hands. He was really enjoying helping me with this project! After the cutting was finished, Eric started to lose interest in the project. I could tell he was getting tired. He had not had a nap yet and it was 4pm. We settled in the living room and played with his toys for a while. Then we read some books and lights out for a nap. Eric was asleep almost immediately after the lights were out.
I did some painting while he slept. I cleaned up my mess, and I woke him up around 5:30pm. I had planned to take Eric to Chuck E. Cheese’s for dinner. He woke up and I asked him if he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s. He said, “YES! YES! Let’s go to Chuck E. Cheese’s!” We got dressed and left for Chuck’s. The whole time we were getting ready, Eric kept saying, “Come on Daddy. Let’s go to Chuck E. Cheese’s!” We got to Chuck’s and ordered our pizza. Now we were stuck sitting at a table for our pizza. Eric had not stopped talking about “pepper oni” all the way in the car and the whole time we stood in line, and he reminded me again while I was ordering and continued talking about his “pepper oni” while we waited for the pizza. He is still learning patience, so he has difficulty understanding that we have to wait for our food to be prepared. Add to that the additional time waiting for the pizza to cool off before he can eat it. I can see this is very frustrating for him. He wants it now! The pizza finally cooled enough, but he refused to eat. I was at a loss, since he had not stopped talking about his “pepper oni pizza”. Since he did not eat any dinner, I told him that he could play only one game before we went home. Eric had been here with Mommy and his cousin Tyler several times. He led me right to his favorite game. When we got there, it was broken. I explained this to Eric and he just started crying. So far, nothing about this trip was going as I had imagined it would. I calmed him, and he stopped crying. We walked around looking for another game to play. He pointed to another game and said, “Let’s play this one.” I agreed. It was a game that dropped the token onto a revolving turntable covered randomly with “baskets”. The object is to drop the token into any one of the baskets to earn points and thus get tickets. Eric and I dropped all 50 of our tokens into the game. We earned almost 200 tickets. Eric traded his tickets for a purple rubber ball.
At home, Eric was wiped out and definitely ready for bed. Lights out and Eric was fast asleep.
