Woke up early today – no snooze naps! The kids were in a need of a bath to wash all of the lego dust they accumulated on their person’s the day before at Legoland. After the baths were over I went downstairs to receive my coffee from the shop down the street; apparently I’ve provided them with so much business that they offered to bring me a coffee at regular intervals throughout the day; it’s much appreciated!
After reading last night’s blog post (Day 5) the family banished me from their ranks. I finally convinced them to leave my youngest son with me so that I didn’t have to be alone – I hate, hate, HATE, being alone. As the rest of the family loaded up and drove off to Sea World, my youngest son ran to our bathroom and got into the shower. I laughed at first, because I couldn’t figure out why he was in the shower; he’s never taken one before – and he was fully clothed. The laughter quickly ended though when I realized why he was in the shower…he had to poop. Even worse, his mom just left which meant that I would have to change him. Upon this realization I did what most dads would do when they find themselves in this situation: I called his mom.
Me: You need to come back now; there is an emergency!
Wife: WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED? IS MY SON OKAY?
Me: At the moment yes but he really needs you right now. Wait, he’s our son right?
Wife: WHY? IS HE HURT? IS HE CRYING? IF MY SON IS HURT…!
Me: (starting to cry) No. He…he…he’s about to p-p-poop. He is our son right?
Wife: We’ll talk later…
(Dial Tone)
I was on my own.
After several attempts to get my son out of the shower to change him and being rebuffed each time I decided I might as well drink my coffee (the next 20 oz cup would be coming any moment now) and check e-mails. Three or fours later, I remembered that my son was still in the shower and went to check on him. He had pooped, he informed me, but had grown tired of waiting for me to change him so he did it himself. This was a great relief for me but I have no idea what he did with dirty diaper; I’m guessing that someone will have a most unwelcome surprise when they return tonight. With the showering completed my youngest son and I headed out for our day together in the great city of San Diego.
I had quite an agenda planned out for the two of us and, I must say, everything went according to plan; it just wasn’t my plan.
The first stop was Old Town San Diego where I picked the most appropriate activity that I could think of for a three year-old: touring a haunted house. It wasn’t just any haunted house, but one of the most haunted houses in America: the Whaley House. After we purchased our tickets I could feel my son shivering with excitement as we approached the house. Five minutes later we left the house having explored it in record time, I’m sure. Maybe, I thought to myself, we should have done something like skydiving instead…
After a quick snack in Old Town, we headed to a playground on Mission Bay. This activity went over much better as my son loved swinging for six minutes and dipping his toes into the bay for another three. With all of my plans completed in less than an hour I, again, resorted to what I do best…I panicked. I quickly pulled out my phone to search for activities for kids and found one that we could only do in San Diego: McDonald’s.
My new plan was this, I’d get McDonald’s for my son and then we’d go somewhere for lunch for me. This worked except my son fell asleep in the car after eating McDonald’s. Since this was his first real nap of the trip I took one for the team and found a brewery that was 30+ miles away; this will give him plenty of time to sleep, I thought to myself. I also thought, I’m a pretty cool dad for doing this! I mean it’s not just any dad that would take their three year-old son to both a haunted house and a brewery all in the same day.
Ahem.
At any rate, after letting my son have an extremely long nap we made it to Alpine Beer Company. By all accounts this brewery is the holy grail of beer around these parts and I agree that the lack of finding it readily available in San Diego would give that impression. I’m not saying it was bad, it just wasn’t necessarily worth the 567 mile drive, but, again, I really did this for the sake of my son’s nap. My youngest son enjoyed our feast of sweet potato fries, sausage, cheese, crackers and grapes. I had a taster tray of six beers (served in a muffin tin, which was unique) and they were good but, again, not out of the ordinary. After purchasing a few bottles to go (it was a long drive back – kidding!) my son and I drove back to the house and I promptly fell asleep on the couch while my son played iPad; this time he took one for the team. It was a proud moment for me. Missing several coffee deliveries during the day I had no choice but to buy a coffee at the market and awaited the arrival of the family.
Needless to say, after not seeing me for many hours, the family was quite excited to see Fritz. After getting squared away, my brother-in-law and his family made a wonderful dinner of spaghetti, caesar salad, bread, mussels, lobster tails, crab and saffron-infused kobe beef pinwheels. Again, I hope the rest of the family wasn’t jealous that they made this just for me. Either way it was much appreciated.
In the end, I learned a valuable lesson today: it doesn’t matter whether the day is planned and rushed, or unplanned and unrushed; if kids are involved it’s going to be exhausting. Especially when they need to take a “shower”.
Accounting 4 Life 
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