Meaningful Glances

Instead of reading a book or taking a nap (which I could really use) right now, I thought I'd take a little time to update this ferociously neglected blog. It's a "Daddy Day" today - Evelyn is mine all mine until mommy gets home. She is snoozing cozily in her recently reinforced bed (see Brigetta's blog for more on that), and I am here in the office (den, family room, man cave, whatever), having just cleared out the remains of our "playhouse." "Fort," apparently, was not as attractive to Evelyn. "Do you wanna help daddy build a fort to play in?," I'd say. "I don't have to," came the reply. "What about a playhouse - should we build one of those to play in?" Behold the eyes widen; "That be OK!!! We make build a PLAAAYHOUSE!" And so on. Down came the futon matress, quickly followed by the vacuum cleaner - it turns out Evelyn wasn't quite as neat with her breakfast this morning as I thought - and then there were blankets to gather, books to weight them down, chairs from the dining room, pillows from every corner of the house, and one light-up penguin wand from the zoo. It took up all the free space in the room, excepting a few feet in front of the door when "we" finally finished it. "We" meaning "me," despite the "help" from both Evelyn and Scout. It's - and any of you fellow fort builders out there can attest - delicate work putting together a masterpiece of this magnitude. When you realize that one big bible isn't enough to hold this blanket on that support and there's no way to walk around to get at it, you must crawl through the unfinished structure to make the repair. My problem - excuse me - my help today decided that they would crawl through with me. "Stay right here while daddy crawls through." Yeah right. "I crawl with you," said Evelyn. Scout agreed by licking me from chin to eyeball. So "we" built it together, took our penguin wand inside and had ourselves a time. It's amazing how the same old toys and activities become fresh and exciting when you're in a "playhouse." We sang the ABC's what had to have been a half dozen times, hammered on the hammer bench, typed on an old keyboard, fixed Daddy's hair, took a "rest" (for all of five seconds), and experimented with falling flat on our faces. OK, that last one was just Evelyn, and even though I do generally enjoy a good face-flop on to a mattress, I had to explain to her when she asked me to try that daddy was too tall to try it in the playhouse. I wish I'd been able to take pictures, but I think Brigetta has the camera with her at work today, and my cell phone camera wasn't able to pick up much in the relative dark of the playhouse interior. Instead, you get my thousand words, give or take a few (thousand).

And that is a slice of my new-and-improved Thursday. In the current absence of a second job, here's where all the time goes: Mondays are family days - zoo, park, swimming, the mall, you name it. We find time to get out of the house as a family and have fun on the only weekday that we all have off. Tuesdays start off with Brigetta out the door early and Evelyn getting to "sleep in" and have breakfast and some play time with me. At around 10am, Miss Julie comes to pick Evelyn up for the afternoon while I set in to work on the coming Sunday services. Brigetta picks up the kiddo after work while I snoop around the kitchen to see what the girls could have for dinner while I'm off climbing with Randy. I get my kisses and hugs when they get home and then it's off to the gym so I can be back for the bedtime routine. Wednesdays start off much the same, except that Brigetta doesn't have to be away quite so early, so she gets Evelyn up and out the door to Julie's on her way to work. I spend that morning and afternoon trying to more or less finish work on any chord charts and other things that need to be done before Sunday so that I can make a brief stop by the office in the evening to make copies and pull any charts I didn't print from home. Thursdays, as you now know, are Daddy Days. I get to be Mr. Mom, and I'll be honest - I love it. Not easy, certainly, but worth it. When Brigetta gets home, I'll head out to practice with the rest of the worship team and try, once again, to be home in time help Evelyn go night-night. Friday is usually the day that Evelyn gets to go to Granny and Papa's (my mom and dad) to play in the late morning and early afternoon, though this week they will both be out of town to a wedding in Virginia, so I get an extra Daddy Day. Woohoo! We might even have a car and a camera for that one, so look out - there may be some pictures coming your way tomorrow.

As if on cue (a really, really early cue), the sounds of Evelyn discontentedly stirring are tickling my ears, so it's time to stop typing and go to take my little short-napper for the walk I promised before rest time!

Addendum:
"Hey Sweets, why such a short nap today?"

"I just wake up. I was jumping."

"Do you feel like you have to go potty?"

(Contemplating with head to one side) "I feel...like I have to go play."