Daddy’s View

10/27/2012 through 10/31/2012:

On the Saturday before Halloween, we were eating lunch at home.  Eric was pretending to talk on the phone.  He likes to pretend using his phone.

Flash Forward:  We went to his preschool on Halloween for a party during class.  One of Eric’s teachers came over to me and Mommy to tell us an anecdote from earlier in the school year.  She told us that during the first week or two of class, she was getting ready for story time.  She had the book open and started into the first page.  Eric spoke up and said, “Wait!  I have to take this.”  He proceeded to answer his imaginary cell phone, saying, “Hello.  Oh I can’t talk right now.  We are in the middle of a story.  Okay.  Bye.”  At which he put away his imaginary phone.  He interrupted the class and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him.  His teacher is an older woman, I think she is a retired teacher.  She told us that in all her years teaching, she had never had anything like that happen.  We all had a good laugh at that story.

Okay.  Back to my original story…Eric was pretending to talk on his imaginary phone, and he said to Mommy and me, “My real phone is an iPhone.”  Mommy and I both replied with “Oh, okay.” and kept eating our lunch.  Mommy then asked him, “What is the phone number for your real phone?”, expecting him to recite our home phone number.  Instead he rattled off a long string of digits, maybe 12 or so, definitely longer than a usual 10-digit phone number.  I responded, “Wow!  That’s a long number!  Is there an international prefix for that number?”  I figured he would have no idea what I was asking, but instead of asking me what I meant, he recited our 7-digit home phone number.  So, being a little silly, I asked him,”Oh.  Is that prefix for Mars?”  To which, he replied, “No.  It bounces my signal off Mars.”  I had no idea he knew that signals were bounced off anything.  Stunned, I simply replied, “oh”, and then aside to Mommy, “I guess Eric won that round [of conversation]”

We spent a few hours that Saturday rearranging Eric’s bedroom.  We removed the changing table that was still in there from his “baby” days and moved his bed and dresser.  It really opened up the room with more space for him to play.  His first reaction was to use the extra floor space for dancing, so we turned on the radio in his room, and we all danced to the songs mostly from the 80’s.  We had a lot of fun until we were all too tired to dance any more (except Eric…he was ready to keep dancing all day).

Later that afternoon, we went over to Grandma G’s house.  She lives in a retirement community, and they were having a Halloween party with food and entertainment.  Residents were encouraged to invite their families, so of course Grandma wanted her grandchildren to come.  I’ve noticed that Grandmothers rarely miss an opportunity to show off their grandchildren.  Eric was dressed in his batman costume…he was very excited!  Eric’s cousin Tyler was also dressed in his costume (no one is really sure what it was, other than a combination of several costume ideas).  We walked from Grandma’s apartment over to the clubhouse.  The food was very good, and the entertainment was entertaining.  They had a pumpkin decorating contest.  We each had a small pumpkin to draw a face.  Eric and I shared a pumpkin.  Eric drew on one side, and I drew on the other side.  There were a lot of really neat pumpkin faces drawn on all of the pumpkins.  Mommy won first prize for the best pumpkin face!  The winners were decided by votes from all of the party attendees.  Actually, our table with Grandma, Eric, Tyler, Mommy, and Aunt Carol won several of the door prizes that night.  We were very lucky and talented!

 Eric and Tyler in costume.  I hardly recognize them…

 Eric in the conga line at the party…

The next day on Sunday was our neighborhood Halloween parade.  Many of the kids from the neighborhood show up dressed in their costumes and walk several blocks to the playground where they have activities and snacks set up.  We were a little late, so after walking hurriedly for a couple blocks, Mommy decided to go back for the car.  She drove to the playground and met us there.  Eric and I ran all the way to the playground.  We finally caught up to the parade about 1 block before we got there.  We were tired of running.  Eric first ran toward the playground, but I showed him the activities that were set up.  He stuffed a homemade pillow that looks like a pumpkin.  As he was stuffing it, he told me, “I’m making this pillow for Mommy!”  After making the pillow, we went over to the snack table, and Eric chose a big messy cupcake to eat.  I tried a couple of cookies.  Mommy finally made it to the playground, and we all had a good time.  Eric played for quite a while until we decided to go home.  Two days in a row wearing his costume!  Very exciting!

 That cupcake sure was good!

When we got home from the parade activities, we got Eric out of his costume and carved our pumpkins before dinner.  We started with all of us drawing faces on paper, some funny and some scary.  After we all had drawn a few faces, Eric got to choose which one we would carve on our pumpkin.  We only bought one pumpkin this year.  I cut the top off of our pumpkin, and Eric and I scooped out all of the “guts”.  I transferred the paper face design onto the pumpkin using a marker and began carving.  Mommy had an idea to use a drill for carving the pumpkin.  Since the face that Eric chose had round eyes, it was a perfect candidate for “power carving”.  I got my cordless drill and my hole saws from the garage.  Eric helped me hold the drill steady, while we cut the eyes and nose out of the pumpkin.  Meanwhile, Mommy was separating the pumpkin seeds from the pile of “guts” that we had scooped out.  When we were finished, Eric went back to playing in the living room, while Mommy finished cooking our dinner.  I decided to grab the small pumpkin that we had decorated at Grandma’s Halloween party and carve a face into it.  I drew a scary face on the pumpkin at the party, and that is how I carved it out.  It had evil looking eyes and a mouth with sharp fangs!

 Eric lifts the lid off the pumpkin.

 It’s a messy job, but somebody’s got to do it!

Halloween was on a Wednesday this year, which meant that Eric would be in school that morning.  His class was having a Halloween party that day, so Eric dressed in his costume before going to school.  Mommy and I showed up later for the party.  One of the other parents read a Halloween story to the kids, while Mommy handed out candy corn for the kids to eat with their snack.  After snack time, the teachers had set up a couple games for them to play.  They split the class into two groups and switched games after a little while.  It was a lot of fun!  The best part was when Mommy and I got there.  Mommy decided to dress in a costume.  She put on some old scrubs that she had from working at the doctors’ office years ago.  She wore her reading glasses and a blond wig with Eric’s toy stethoscope around her neck.  Eric saw us standing there before the party started.  He called across the room, “Where’s Mommy?”  He didn’t recognize Mommy with her disguise.  I shrugged and put my arm around the doctor standing next to me.  I think this confused him a little bit.  When the teachers were finished with their activity and the party was ready for the parents to participate, Eric came over and still did not recognize Mommy until she told him that it was her.  He got a kick out of her costume.  He kept asking her, “Why are you dressed like that?”

Halloween night, it was time for trick-or-treating!  It was cold outside, so we bundled Eric in layers underneath his costume.  Mommy took Eric out to the houses nearest us, while I stayed home to treat the neighborhood kids that came to our door.  When they returned after a short while, Mommy and I traded places, and I took Eric all the way to the end of our street, around the cul-de-sac, and back home along the opposite side.  Eric was getting tired, but he kept running up to the houses and asking, “Trick-or-Treat?”  As most kids would agree, Eric loved the idea of free candy!

 Trick or Treat!  I’m Batman!

10/25/2012:

Mommy had some discount tickets for the zoo that were soon to expire, so we made it a day.  Mommy packed a picnic lunch, and we piled into the car to drive to the zoo.  After we parked the car, we set up our picnic at the tables provided just outside the entrance to the zoo.  We ate our sandwiches, crackers, carrots, and pretzels.  I took the picnic stuff back to the car, while Mommy and Eric headed into the zoo for a much needed bathroom break.

 Eric and I make a serious pretzel face.

When I got into the zoo, I headed toward the nearest bathrooms to look for Mommy and Eric.  I did not see them, so I waited on a bench.  I had seen one of Eric’s preschool teachers with her own children, so when Mommy and Eric finally found me, I pointed out his teacher from last year in the Bumblebee class.  Eric went over and said “Hi!”  His former teacher was surprised to see him there at the zoo.

When I asked Eric what he wanted to do first, he insisted on seeing the elephants.  So, I looked on the map and found the elephants…they were all the way at the far end of the zoo.  We would have to walk past all of the other animals to get there.  When I asked him, he insisted again that he wanted to see the elephants, nothing else.  We started walking in that direction, and of course, managed to see several other animal exhibits along the way.  Always reassuring Eric that this was the way to the elephants.  He had been to the zoo several times with Mommy and Blake with his Mommy, so he had seen most of the animals before.

 The rhinos were resting…

 The zebra was walking…

 Eric was peering at the gazelles…

We saw lots of animals and, yes, we finally saw the elephants.  When we got to the elephant habitat, Eric looked at them for a minute or less, and he was done.  It is amazing what a 4-year-old will go through for such a short moment of gratification!  At least we had a lot of fun along the way!  Eric and I rode on the carrousel and the roller coaster, which was “scary but also fun!”  We rode the zoo train twice around the zoo.  As we were getting off from the first time, we saw Eric’s preschool teacher again and said “Hi” again.  We got off the train and immediately got right back in line to board the train again.

 The elephants were drinking and washing.  Eric explained that they were picking up water with their trunks.

 “Hi, Mommy!”

It was a fun day at the zoo for the whole family!

10/23/2012:

The day finally came when we went shopping for Eric’s halloween costume.  He had changed his mind a couple times, so it was good that we waited.  He originally wanted to be a witch, and we explained that boys could not be witches.  He could be a warlock or a wizard.  He insited that he wanted to be a witch.  On a later trip to Meijer where we looked at costumes, he changed his mind and decided to be a zombie!  I knew that Mommy would not approve of this with all the blood and gore that goes with the costume, so rather than buy the costume, I took pictures of two different zombie costumes and told Eric that we would show them to Mommy to decide.  Fortunately, he changed his mind again before we finally went to the Halloween store to buy his costume.  He now wanted to be a skeleton.  We tried on a few costumes.  But, he eventually settled on a batman costume.  The one that fit him was the old TV show batman with blue tights and a blue cape.  It looked much better on him than the dark knight costumes that are more popular nowadays.  He really liked the cape and the utility belt.

A few days later, Mommy went to dinner with some friends.  Boys’ Night!  That is Eric’s and mine favorite night!  I cooked a frozen pizza, of course we ate on the floor in the living room, and we watched a movie together.  We watched the Incredibles movie.  Eric had not seen it before.  Mommy always discouraged it, because she thought parts of it were too scary.  I took a chance, and Eric loved it!  There were only a couple parts that he did not like when the bad guys were being bad, but these were not too scary to keep watching.  We curled up on the sofa and watched the movie while eating popcorn.

10/16/2012 through 10/21/2012:

Aunt Eileen passed away in October.  We drove up to attend the wake and funeral.  I also had a job interview that same week in Milwaukee, so we drove up to Grandma D’s and Grandpa D’s house on Tuesday afternoon.  Mommy and Eric stayed there while I drove up to Milwaukee for the day on Wednesday.  Eric always loves going to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house!  This time was no different.

Grandma made Eric’s favorite meal for dinner Tuesday: spaghetti and meat balls!  On Wednesday, Grandma, Mommy, and Eric walked to both of the neighborhood playgrounds and had a great time!  It was quite a treat to go to two playgrounds in one day.  On Thursday, Eric and I helped Grandpa with some chores in the yard.  Of course, Eric also played with the toys from “Grandma’s toy shed”.

 Aunt Cindy reads a bedtime story Tuesday night.

On Friday morning, we packed up the car and drove to the hotel near Algonquin.  Aunt Cindy rode with me, Mommy, and Eric.  Uncle Rob would drive up to meet us on Saturday morning.  We checked into the hotel and Eric had fun exploring the room.  Our room was joined with Aunt Cindy’s room, so this was a real novelty to Eric.  We ate some fast food take-out for lunch and dressed for the wake.  Eric was excited to see his cousins Mario and Anthony.  They played together most of the evening at the funeral home.  They always have so much fun together.

We returned to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house Saturday afternoon after the funeral and brunch.  We stayed overnight before coming home on Sunday.  Aunt Deborah and Uncle Jeff were also staying at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house Satuday night.  When they arrived a few minutes after we got there, Eric offered to “show them around”.  Since we had stayed there for most of the week, Eric was getting very comfortable and settled at their house.  He was confident that he knew everything there was to know, and he wanted to share with Aunt Deborah and Uncle Jeff.  He proceed to give them a guided tour of the entire house, room by room.  He did not seem to comprehend that Aunt Deborah and I used to live in that house.  He offered and gave tours to everyone who came over that night including Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rob.  Uncle Jeff later went on an extended tour.

 Eric caught in action at Grandma’s house Saturday night, in between guided tours of course!

10/13/2012:

Friends of ours were having a bonfire.  Eric was very disappointed that he did not get to roast any marshmallows last weekend on the fishing trip.  He fell asleep in my lap waiting for Grandpa to get the roasting supplies out of the motor home.  When he realized this the next morning, he was very distraught.  Mommy and I hoped that the bonfire would make him feel better about the marshmallows.  We were all looking forward to some fun.

We drove around, got lost for a few minutes, and finally found our friends’ house.  Eric thought the fire was very cool!  We cooked hot dogs over the fire and ate lots of great food.  After eating his hot dog, Eric ran around with some of the other kids who were playing on the play set and in the rented bouncy house.  Soon, he was back to roast a marshmallow.  He actually roasted a few marshmallows and made s’mores.  Then he was off to run around with the other kids again.  He had a great time that evening.  He was pretty upset when it was time to go home.

10/05/2012 through 10/07/2012:

October brings Boys’ Weekend again.  Last year, we started a tradition to have an annual Boys’ Weekend.  Grandpa D, Eric, and I spend the weekend camping in the motor home.  This year, we invited Eric’s cousin Tyler to join us.  We had a lot of fun!  Eric has been talking for several months about going fishing, so when we planned this year’s trip of course we had to go fishing.  Grandpa reserved a camp site at Summit Lake State Reservoir.  When we began making plans, I told Eric about the trip.  He remembered Boys’ Weekend from last year, so he was very excited!  He talked frequently about the upcoming trip and going fishing with Grandpa.  Eric could hardly wait to get in Grandpa’s boat to go fishing.  This would be his first time fishing!

Grandpa drove to our house on Friday afternoon.  We packed our stuff into the motor home, at least the stuff that was not already packed in our truck.  When we were ready, we headed to Tyler’s house to pick him up after he got home from school.  We loaded his stuff into the truck and away we went!  Eric and Tyler rode with Grandpa in the motor home.  I drove by myself in the truck…alone, unless you count Mickey 🙂  We needed the truck to put Grandpa’s boat in and out of the water at the campground.  Eric was so proud to be sitting up front in the motor home with Grandpa.  He was so high up and what a view through the expansive windshield!

 Mickey rode behind me in the truck.

We set up the motor home Friday when we arrived at the campground.  It was raining, so we sat inside all evening.  Grandpa cooked some burgers on the grill under the canopy.  We enjoyed just hanging out and relaxing.  On Saturday morning, we got up and ate breakfast.  Eric and Tyler played and ran around the campsite.  Grandpa and I prepared the boat and fishing tackle.  Eric and Tyler helped with this, too.  We fixed some sandwiches for lunch, and we were ready for an afternoon of fishing.  We decided to go in the afternoon, since it was cold and windy.  We figured it would be more comfortable in the afternoon.  Eric and Grandpa rode in the boat on the trailer, and Tyler and I rode in the truck to the boat ramp.  Eric had so much fun fishing on the boat!  He really enjoyed spending time with Grandpa.  They sat next to each other, and Grandpa showed him how to hold onto his fishing pole, how to watch his bobber for fish, and how to reel it in when the fish is hooked.  Eric’s attention span was remarkable.  Grandpa and I had differing opinions beforehand about how long Eric would last on the boat before he got bored, but he exceeded both of our expectations significantly.  We were out on the lake fishing for over three hours, and Eric was engaged the entire time.  I caught the first fish…too small, throw it back.  Grandpa caught a couple fish…also too small, throw them back.  Finally, Eric caught a fish using Grandpa’s fishing pole.  He was so excited.  He reeled it in all by himself.  It too was not large enough to keep but every bit as exciting to catch!  Eric was only a little disapointed that he had not caught it with his own pole.  To this day, if you ask him whether he caught any fish on that trip, he will explain that he caught one, “but it was on Grandpa pole, not mine.”

 Eric making a silly face on the sofa in the motorhome.

 Eric studied the park map, esecially the details of the lake.

 Eric rode in the boat to the ramp with Grandpa.

It was a great weekend.  We relaxed, had fun, bonded, and mostly just hung out.  We are all looking forward to next year!

P.S. The mulitude of big fish that we caught were not mentioned above, as we ate them all and so did not bring back any evidence of their capture 🙂

09/28/2012 through 09/30/2012:

Eric’s cousin Michelle got married!  We travelled to Michigan for the weekend to join the celebration.  Michelle had asked Eric to be part of the wedding.  Eric’s job: carry a sign in front of Michelle as she walks down the aisle that reads, “Here Comes the Bride”.  Eric had practiced walking and carrying a pretend sign up and down the hallway in our house.  He was very excited about participating in the ceremony.  When it was time to go to Michigan, Mommy and I finished packing on Friday morning, while Eric was at school.  The plan was to pick him up from school and go directly to the hotel in Michigan.  We were a few minutes late to pick him up due to some last-minute items that had to be found and packed.  When we arrived, he was waiting with a couple of the preschool teachers, and he had been telling them all about the upcoming weekend.  They said that he told them all the details: he was going to carry a sign, we would stay in a hotel, there would be a big party…  He was very excited when we picked him up.  He ran to the car and jumped in!

We arrived at the hotel and found a parking space.  I saw Grandma D’s and Grandpa D’s car in the lot, so I announced that they had already arrived before us.  We got out, unloaded most of our luggage from the trunk (as much as we could carry), and proceeded to the hotel entrance.  At least, we thought it was the entrance.  Grandma had seen us drive into the parking lot and hurried down to greet us.  She directed us to the correct entrance, as Eric ran over to give her a big hug.  I never saw his suitcase roll so fast!  I think that Grandma was just as excited as Eric.  We checked in and went up to our room.  It was joined with Grandma’s and Grandpa’s room.  This would be a fun weekend!  Eric enjoyed being able to go back and forth between the two rooms.  He talked to Grandma and Grandpa and told them all about his day at school and various other topics.

After our long drive, we got cleaned up and dressed to go to the rehearsal.  Eric finally got to see the sign that he would carry for Michelle.  It was a lot heavier than our practice sign (a piece of notebook paper), but Eric was up to the task.  Michelle also presented him with a t-shirt to wear during rehearsal.  It was a plain black shirt with white letters that said, “Ring Security”.  Eric loved the new shirt.  He was proud of his job.  We also learned that the sign had a revese side that Eric would carry out with the wedding party after Michelle and Nick (her new husband) walked out together as husband and wife.  The reverse side said, “…and They Lived Happily Ever After”.  Eric did very well in practice and listened to all of the directions that were given to him by everyone.  We all met at a restaurant for dinner afterward.  Eric behaved well, and we ate some wonderful food.  The bride and groom presented gifts to all of the wedding party including Eric.  Eric received a large bag full of games and toys and coloring books!  Eric was so excited!

 Eric shows off his new shirt!

 Eric explains to Mommy how the fountain works by trickling water from the upper bowl down through the lower bowls.

 Eric practices carrying the sign.

On Saturday morning, we ate breakfast in the hotel with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Deborah, and Uncle Jeff.  Eric tried a new cereal that he had never had before: Fruit Loops.  He insisted that he should eat them without milk to know what they really tasted like.  He liked the cereal so much that he had the same thing for breakfast the next morning, too.  After breakfast, Eric, Grandpa, and I went outside to fix a broken window on our car.  We discovered on the drive up the day before that the driver’s window regulator was broken.  I had replaced it twice before, so I was able to quickly remove the door panel, and we fashioned a makeshift “prop” to hold the window in the up position until I could replace the regulator after we got home.  Eric was very helpful!  He helped Grandpa and I look for a sturdy fallen tree branch to wedge into the door panel under the window.  At one point, Grandpa had gone to the hotel front desk to ask if they had a small saw that we could use to cut the branch.  As Grandpa was returning from the wood shed with a large bow saw, Eric ran over to me and said, “Grandpa is coming back with a chain saw.  It’s really big!”  I was pretty sure that the hotel staff did not loan Grandpa a chain saw.  When Grandpa got back to the car, I explained to Eric that it was not a chain saw.  I don’t think it mattered to him.  All he knew was that it was a really big saw!

After we had repaired the car, we walked around the hotel grounds.  There was a small pond with a walk path around it, so we walked around looking at all of the decorations and art sculptures that were placed around the pond.  The hotel had been a 19th century boarding house for local artists.  Grandpa and I talked, while Eric ran around.  Uncle Jeff joined us after a while.

The “girls” (Grandma, Mommy, and Aunt Deborah) had gone over to the vineyard and the winery to help with the wedding decorations.  Around noon, Grandpa and Uncle Jeff went to visit a local micro-brewery before the wedding.  Eric and I went to Aunt Bev’s hotel and borrowed her room key to use the swimming pool.  First, we ate lunch at Culver’s right next door.  We played in the pool for a while until it looked like we had just enough time to get back to our hotel and dress for the wedding.  Michelle had requested that Eric be at the winery for pictures at 3pm.  We also ran into our cousin Chris, who was staying at the same hotel across the hall from Aunt Bev’s and Uncle Mike’s room.  Mommy called to check up on us, while we changed out of our swim trunks.  She was not too sure that we would make it back in time for the pictures, but I assured her that I had left us plenty of time.  However, when we got in the car, I realized that I had been looking at the clock on my cell phone, which automatically adjusted itself to the locl time zone.  The clock in the car does not adjust itself.  That was when I remembered that the hotel with the swimming pool was about 15 miles west of our hotel and, it was in the central time zone.  Our hotel and the wedding were in the eastern time zone!  Yikes!  We hurried back to our hotel, changed into our fancy clothes as fast as we could, and hurried over to the winery for pictures.

Whew!  When we got there, it appeared that they were not yet ready for Eric to take pictures.  Then Uncle Mike informed me that there had been a mix-up with the photographer, so we would take pictures at the vineyard after the wedding instead.  Ugh!  All that hurrying for nothing.  Well, actually not for nothing, since Eric and I were given the very important job of rushing the programs over to the vineyard for the ushers to hand out as they seated the guests.  It was almost time for the wedding, so I knew that Eric’s cousins Josh and Jake would already be seating the guests.  We hurried to deliver our package.  As we were walking back to our car at the winery, I heard the train crossing gates close and the sound of a train whistle.  The commuter train regularly runs through, so Eric and I stopped next to the car and waited to see it “fly” through the middle of town.  It was loud and fast.  Eric thought it was pretty cool!

At the wedding, Eric did a great job carrying the sign and stood quitely next to cousin Michael (one of the groomsmen) until the ceremony was over and carried the reversed sign down the aisle to exit.  Mommy and I were so proud!  Later at the reception, Eric had a blast!  He waited patiently for dinner to be served, helped in no small part part by his cousin Jennifer letting him borrow her iPad to play games.  After dinner and speeches, the music was turned up, the head tables were cleared out, and the dancing began.  Eric took full advantage of the opportunity to show off his moves!  He danced for most of the night with only a few breaks.  He danced with everyone.  He was a real popular guy with the ladies, sometimes dancing with two or three at a time!  He stayed out well past his bed time, but Mommy and I could not bring ourselves to stop him when he was having so much fun and behaving so well.  He finally told Mommy that he was too tired to party any more.  Mommy and Eric drove back to the hotel.  I stayed a little while longer to see the bride and groom leave and rode back to the hotel with Grandma and Grandpa.

 Eric looking so cool!

 Eric strutted down the aisle escorted by his cousins Josh and Jake (ushers).

 Eric waits patiently for the ceremony to finish.

 Eric dances with Mommy.

 Eric dances with the bridesmaids.

When I got back to the hotel, I found Mommy and Eric cuddled up together asleep in the bed.  I gently picked up Eric, took him to use the toilet, and placed him in his bed on the floor.  We regularly travel with a small blow-up air bed for Eric.  The bed has a small leak, and Mommy had forgotten to re-inflate it before they went to bed.  It was too late to make so much noise with a pump, so I lay him on the partially flattened bed, anyway.  In the morning, Eric asked me, “Why did you put me on the hard floor last night, Daddy?”  I felt bad, but there was simply not enough room in the bed for all three of us.  Despite his small size, Eric takes up a lot of space in a bed.  It was a fun wedding trip, but we were still glad to be back home and relax after such a fun-filled weekend.