A Grand Day Out

(Cue the Wallace and Gromit music?)

Today was our greatest father-son challenge yet, with a full day of activities to occupy our time -- we were out of the house from 9 am until nearly 6 pm. Other than almost leaving his bag at a restaurant, I think we managed to do pretty well and have a nice day out.

At 9:30 am, we went to that 'Gigglers' class I'd attended with him for the first time a few weeks earlier. Again, I was the sole daddy (Meh indicates she hadn't seen many in past classes), which was again only slightly awkward, particularly when the day's conversation started with the often negative aspects of how the relationship had changed with the women's partners since their babies had come onto the scene. One of the moms told me that her husband had just been waiting for another guy to attend and hang out with (are we going to go discuss football or something?), so she was pleased to hear that I should be at class all month. Anyway, we had a nice time and Zachary of course took his first of many naps during the class.

Then, as we had a little extra time before mommy's lunch break, we decided to squeeze in a snack for Zachary. But Korby was also running low on dogfood, so to kill two birds with, well, maybe one and a half stones, we drove over to the pet store a mile away from the class, then sat in the lot and had a bottle (insert joke about open containers in a vehicle) before going in to pick up food. The pet store people were very nice; while I was able to lug the 35 lb. bag of food to the register, they had someone bring it out the to car for us.

Next it was on to mommy for lunch. Incidentally, Zachary has become the master of falling asleep in the car 5 minutes before we arrive somewhere. I feel really bad waking him up, though whether it's via picking him up or trying to take the whole car seat, he's a light enough sleeper that he often wakes up in the transition. Of course, later in the day he would prove me wrong... Anyway, he was very happy and kicky to see mommy and her fellow librarians!

And lastly, the two of us went and visited friend/coworker D and his young daughter S for a playdate. She's a month or so younger than Zachary, but again the differences in these young babies are tremendous. She grabs her feet with her hands; I've never seen Zachary show any interest. She rolls over in one direction; Zachary doesn't do either direction yet, since that twice occurring object-induced front-to-back roll. The playdate began rather undramatically; Zachary was conked out from the ride over, and disproved my previous concern by staying asleep in the car seat as I brought it inside. Next the four of us went out for a belated lunch (at 3 pm). As we were walking, S conked out in her stroller just before Zachary woke up hollering to be out of the bloody thing. I got him out and got the stroller resituated -- a women opened her second story window, leaned out, and asked if she could help with anything for the baby. Only in Capitol Hill!

So we had a nice fatherly lunch -- now two hours into the playdate, the babies hadn't actually seen each other awake. We headed back to D's house, where Zachary had a snack, and finally the two were awake at the same time. S actually showed some socializing interest, but Zachary seemed mostly interested in putting his hands in his mouth. The one near interaction was when she waved her hands in front of his face and he almost put one in his mouth. It's particularly interesting since he's so smiley and flirty with grownups (particularly of the female persuasion). But go figure, I guess he goes for the older women or something.

Anyway, we tried out a few fun and decidedly low-tech toys from a class D, R, and baby S had taken -- sleigh bells and shakers (Zachary looked at them but wasn't really interested in holding them); pieces of colored shiny metallic ribbon that both babies were entranced by; the placement and slight rolling of the baby positioned tummy-down on a ball (Zachary didn't care for this); and lastly, a fun little two-grownup-requiring square of fabric with the baby placed in the middle and the four corners lifted into the air to provide a swinging hammock. Zachary really enjoyed the back and forth, and was smiley and even a bit giggly. After a fun afternoon (well, at least for the dads!), we headed home in time for rush hour traffic, and got home at around 5:30 pm - just enough time for a little dancing before naked baffy time and sleep. A nice full day for a young boy!