Vacation

I took today off from work using an actual vacation day. The people I work with seem to take a lot of vacation. Not that we get more vacation time than usual, just that people seem to actually go on vacation or take days off to go other places. I mean, I work with one guy who took two weeks off (one week off at a time, a couple weeks apart) and just stayed home because he was in danger of losing those two weeks due to the carry-over limit, so obviously he isn't a vacationer, but it seems that everyone else around me is off a few days here and there, a week here, a week there...and they're always seeming to actually go places, not just stay home. Sadly, I was not one of those people. I took the day off to spend the day with Felix. Our nanny needed the day off so I stayed home. Now, I've done this several times in the past but I always did the "work from home" scenario which boils down to watching Felix and my email at the same time and then furiously responding to emails and trying to accomplish something during his nap time. Not today. Since I took it as vacation, I decided to treat it like vacation. Felix and I hit the bricks and we had a great day.

Just a warning: if you haven't guessed, this is going to be one of those posts where I extol the awesomeness of having kids. Seriously. There's a lot of stuff that sorta sucks and there's social and cultural baggage to deal with no matter where or who you are when you have kids, there's no escaping that stuff. But the kids themselves, wow, awesome, amazing. Watching them grow up is incredible.

So today we walked to Target, which is about a mile away, and on the way we stopped at Area Kids and got Felix his sneakers. When the weather turned nicer we bough him a pair of sky blue Crocs which he seems to really like, but when he starts doing soccer (or toddler soccer, really) he needs sneakers. So we got those. Then we went to Target and bought him two hats (one floppy fishing-style sun hat with a chin strap, one baseball-style hat with no unfortunate branding or product endorsements). I discovered that at Target they stock, in their grocery section, Organic Valley brand milk. This is the brand of milk I usually get for Felix. This is the milk that he drinks a half gallon of approximately every three days, give or take. And I've been buying it from our local groceries for $4.99 a half-gallon (sometimes its on sale for $3.99). Some stores don't even bother to put pricetags on the milk anymore because of the way things are increasing. Anyway, at Target they have gallon jugs of Organic Valley milk for $3.99. Of course the shelves were bare and it was a vendor stocked item so the Target people had no way of knowing when they would actually be resupplied. Oh well...something to look for each time I go to Target. Two years ago the idea of purchasing milk by the gallon jug was synonymous with throwing money down the kitchen sink drain. In fact, other than for cooking, we almost never bought milk until Felix was old enough to start drinking it. Now its a staple.

I had promised Felix we would stop and play choochoos on the way back from Target but just two blocks away from BN Felix passed out so we went home and he napped for about 50 minutes in his stroller. That was the only down side today, Felix only taking a very short nap. Ah well, it was a vacation day so I suppose I shouldn't have had any aspirations for my "free time" anyway. I did manage to take a shower and make a simple lunch. After he woke up and ate lunch we did go to Barnes and Noble and played with the Thomas trains they have there (brough Felix's own train, a Gordon I believe) and read some books. Then we went up to one of the playgrounds in the park and played for about an hour. Finally, we walked home taking the long way through the park. Felix did not walk to or from Target or BN but when we left the playground Felix was on foot. In the park I felt relatively safe letting Felix do some free walking. You don't walk anywhere with a toddler unless you have LOTS of time and no specific plans on actually arriving. So we walked through the park and picked up sticks and rocks and whatnot. Felix is prone to suddenly just plop down and sit for a short spell, all the while grinning and laughing at the fact that he has sat down and made you stop for a second. He also has a hard time resisting the urge to sit on flat surface that seems to have been intended to be sat upon by anyone with legs of his specific dimensions. This means he loves to sit on curbs, rocks, steps, mounds of grass and/or dirt, etc. Pretty much anything that is between five and ten inches high and is not covered with spikes or broken glass. Since our kite flying this past Saturday, he also has taken to laying down in grassy fields and looking up at the sky. He usually precedes this by pointing to the spot right next to where he intends to lay; this is where you should lay, this is not a suggestion but a command.

He didn't make it all the way home on foot. We were almost about to leave the park when Felix decided that he didn't want to follow me anymore. He walked about 30 feet into a grassy area and waved, shouting "Bye!" then turned to try and join the outfield of a local softball crew. He had a meltdown as I swooped him up and took him back to the stroller. But he had done a LOT of walking and running up to this point and it was pretty warm and very humid, so he was pretty well exercised by our day together. We stopped at a grocery store and got some things for dinner. Upon arriving home we found Glen in the kitchen cooking dinner already. Luckily I had only gotten a few things that didn't require much prep and would easily keep until tomorrow. After dinner Andrea gave Felix his bath and then brushed his teeth and put him to bed. She came out of the room and said, "He was super tired. It was so easy to put him down. You must have worn him out. I don't think [the nanny] wears him out like that." Which makes a certain kind of sense.

It is days like today that make me think I could maybe handle being a stay at home dad. But then this would not have been my vacation day, it would have been my work day, and whats to say that I would feel differently if I was doing this every day of every week. But it's definitely a wonderful way to spend a day here and a day there. I do think I could stand doing it full time...I may have the mentality for it. Of course...start adding in housework and such and who knows...