I had another Single Dad Weekend recently. These weekends not only help me learn more about my son but also about myself. My goal is always survival, for all of us, but my methods are constantly evolving. This time, the method was constant stimulation. A bored kid causes mischief, so we were going to be doing something constantly to give myself more control of his actions.
So, basically at every waking moment, we were on the move or refueling so we would have energy to be on the move (and so neither of us would get cranky). I was basically going to try to make him constantly react, because that man is a monster when he has time to contemplate. A thinking child is a dangerous child.
Friday was easy. He is at daycare for half the day, takes a nap when he gets home, so I just have to fill a couple hours before dinner and another hour before bath. The only issue is that he usually hates me in the afternoon, but without Mom in the house, he realized I was his best option and we actually got along far better than normal during the afternoons. Since he was in a good mood, we headed to a park where he could run around and try to keep up with older kids. Our only issue was him dropping trou in the middle of playground equipment to go potty. We call that “sneaking a pee,” but I picked him up and told him he had to be sneakier than that. The bathroom was right next to the playground but he refused to go. I tried to get him to sneak a pee in the bushes, but he refused that too. He was adamant that he was good to go so he ran towards the playground, took a hard right by the fence and pissed himself to show me who was boss. Let’s just say potty training has been a journey that I will address another time. Long story short: I should have just let him pee in the middle of things.
So a bit of a rocky start, but we got cleaned up, went home, had dinner, and filled the time before bath with a family walk (well, walk for the dog and me, he just got strolled around). With that time filled up, it was bath, books, and bed. Easy peasy.
The next morning started at 4:15. No bueno. When he wakes up in the fives, life is easy, in the fours, it is exponentially more difficult. He was a bit cranky all morning long, but I had a good strategy to power through. We got him to eat in the morning, and then drove to a neighboring town to do a family walk through downtown and along the water. We freshened up and ate at home, and then we went drove to a park where we could run around along a trail, sprint in a field, and check out the turtles and gators in the pond. By that point, we were exhausted, so we went home, grabbed lunch, and then it was nap time. After nap, we ate a snack and then hit up the library. The library not only gave us time to browse for new books, but then he wanted to read them on a park bench outside. I had to tear him away so I could make us dinner, go for the family walk, take the bath, and get him to bed on time.
Sunday was more of the same. We got up, ate, and drove to the pier for a run. He did add a little excitement late in the run when he jimmied his way out of his stroller seatbelt and started standing which added an element of danger to the run. Then we regrouped and ate and went to the aquarium where he could basically run around like a mad man, and he spent a good 15 minutes just running up and down bleachers as opposed to looking at any marine life, but hey, he was living his best life so good for him. After lunch and nap, it was finally time to just chill at home.
Well, the chilling part turned into a bit of drama as we have these stupid heat alarms in our house as opposed to smoke alarms so nearly every time I cook something in the oven, the alarm starts beeping like crazy. On this night, no matter how many windows I opened or fans I turned on, it would not stop. So I was cooking dinner, the dog was freaking out, and the little man was somewhere, but to be fair, I had a lot going on. It was chaos. That’s when my son ran in, and yelled, “I pooped in the potty.” This man has fought us at every turn when it comes to pooping in the potty, so to hear those words gave me hope, but I didn’t get the pure joy until I investigated and saw the tremendous log that he dropped in his potty. We celebrated like we just won the World Series. As a parent, there are moments that fill your heart with so much joy that you get tears in your eyes. Seeing that massive dump that my son left in the potty on his own was one of those moments. I even took a picture for my wife; I was that proud.
We ate our chicken nuggets, fries, and mac and cheese with smiles on our faces as we knew it was a great day to end a great weekend. Mommy would be back tomorrow, which was good. Even though it’s fun to stay busy, it’s also exhausting, and considering the load he dropped off earlier in the evening, he was going to be far fresher than I was tomorrow morning.