Before the start of moving activities and getting locked into Emma's demanding preschool schedule, Sara took the opportunity to head back to Virginia this past weekend to visit her folks and attend a friend's baby shower. As Ian still flies free (and sleeps on planes), he went along with to chaperon, leaving Emma and I to enjoy a 3 day Daddy/Daughter weekend. While this seemed like no big deal at the time of planning, especially in the face of the additional airline ticket price I would have to pay to send Emma as well, as the weekend approached, it became more clear to me the potential pitfalls that await this endeavor.
I needed a plan to keep us both busy and entertained, eliminating any potential down time where crankiness and temper-tantrums could erupt. On previous occasions where I've been left with both Emma and Ian for evenings while Sara went out with friends, I've often employed the drive around tactic. This allows me to get a lot of errands done while using seat belt laws to keep them stationary until they fall asleep. However, this tactic does not seem to scale to a full 3 day weekend as it would require a lot of time in the car (though I did consider driving down to Disneyland).
Instead, I came up with a much simpler plan, which worked great, that I would like to pass along as advice to other Dads out there that may face this circumstance. My plan was simply: STAY OUT OF THE HOUSE. The house, while seemingly the safest place, if full of landmines and much better terms can be negotiated upon leaving the house. My arguments for this simple plan are as follows:
1. You are not king of the castle, they are. Lets face it, they know your house better than you, as they spend a lot more time in it, so there is no place to hide. While you're away at work, they are at home finding every one of your hiding spots. Without Mom or a sibling to distract them, they will track you down with amazing efficiency. If you leave the house, the playing field is leveled.
2. The house contains their toys that will be used against you. In as much as your hope when you bought these toys was to distract your child for a bit so you could relax, these toys will be used against you, either in annoyance of a repeating activity or physically as a weapon. Take the below picture as an example. We bought Emma this nursery rhyme player when she was one year old in the hopes that she might take it to a quiet part of the house and sing along to the tunes. Rather, during a brief spell this weekend while we were stuck at home with nothing to do, this harmless toy is being bashed against my leg and knee, to the tune of "Hickory, Dickory, Dock", as an outlet for her boredom. Removing the child from the house eliminates access to these instruments of pain and annoyance.
3. The novelty of leaving the house can lead to much better negotiating terms. As an example, I often offer Emma the opportunity to join me on a bike ride, during which she excitedly agrees to be strapped down to the bike seat for up to an hour. Alternatively, we went kayaking this weekend, during which time Emma sat in her seat for the better part of a hour. Name me any in-house activity where you could get your child to remain stationary for an hour, voluntarily!
4. Removing the child from the house will keep the house in some semblance of order, so you don't have to clean before your wife comes home. I would also extend this to say don't eat at home as a simple thing like cleaning up the leftovers will offer your child lightly supervised time, during which some other room in the house will fall from cleanliness.
While I say all of this with a great deal of sarcasm and the admission that Emma is a very well behaved child, I stand by the underlying logic of this plan and highly recommend this for your next weekend alone with your child.
As proof of its effectiveness, I present the activities from our successful Daddy/Daughter weekend (sorry for the poor quality cell phone picts).
Day 1: Friday
As no day during the mortgage process would be complete without a long and frustrating conversation with the bank, we started our day there, where Emma helped herself to the lollipops and made herself comfortable:
After a lunch at Emma's favorite lunch location, Red Robin, we headed up to The Exploratorium in San Francisco. This is a great, hands-on, science museum for kids. Well worth a half day visit if you come visit San Francisco. Some of the exhibits included:
Black Sand and Magnets:
A Very Long Echo Tube:
A Musical Instruments inside sound dampened rooms:
And outside the museum, the folks at Nintendo set up a Wii resort, complete with leis, that Emma refused to be pictured with.
Total Time spent in House: 1.5 Hours
Day 2: Saturday
Saturday was too nice a day to spend indoors, we ventured out for a day of outdoor festivities. After a great breakfast of Micky Mouse pancakes and Chocolate Waffles at Stacks in Campbell (highly recommended), we biked from Campbell to Los Gatos:
we went kayaking on the Vasona Reservoir:
practiced our duck calls with the safety whistle on our life jacket (which I'm sure was perfectly clean):
enjoyed a healthy picnic lunch:
went on a train and the carousel:
did some climbing on the playground:
biked back to the car, went to soccer practice, and finished off the day with church (Thank You nursery workers.)
Total Time spent in House: 2 Hours
Day 3: Sunday
No pictures to share for Sunday, but having used all my good ideas on the previous 2 days, we spent most of this day riding around on the bike to friends houses in order to avoid our own house. We did return home for a few hours, when I, miraculously, got her to take a 2 hour nap! Upon waking up, I rushed her back out of the house, wired her on Ice Cream at 9PM at night, so she could stay up until Sara's flight arrived at 11:30 PM.
Total Time spent in House: 4 hours (2 hours napping!)
P.S. For those wives out there that doubt the ability of the husband to handle this, please note the following observations from the above pictures:
1. Emma was dressed everyday, in different cloths (that were not laid out by mom), that were clean, and possibly matched.
2. Emma's hair was brushed everyday
3. Emma even took a bath
