WINTER BREAK: DAY ONE

I had been dreading this day for weeks. Arden would be off from school for two full weeks and the new part-time nanny was heading off to Ohio to visit her family for the entire time. It’s not like I haven’t watched both girls before. Hell, I do it all the time, but with Arden in school five days a week since July and with someone watching Alex two days a week, I had kinda gotten spoiled.

I had made the conscious decision that I was going to do some “big” activity with the girls every day. I didn’t care if it was something I hated doing like going to the park or the beach. I just knew I would need to get us all out of the house, in order to keep my sanity and to keep the girls from going all “Lord of the Flies” in our living room.

I knew it would be extremely difficult to wrangle both girls during some of these excursions, so I decided the least painful way of attacking my temporary return to full-time stay-at-home dadhood was to not do it alone. If I had other people with me it would help pass the time and allow me to hand off Alex for a minute or two so I could play with Arden a little and so I could go to the bathroom like a normal human being. My ingenious plan meant I had to be the alpha parent and actually organize these activities, something I neither like doing nor am I very good at. But I was determined to make this work so I emailed all the parents in Arden’s preschool class and told them about my plan. Then I waited for the replies to come rolling in.

Crickets. The only responses I got for Day One’s activity, “Bowling with Four Year Olds,” was from my friend Sam who said she would be bringing her two boys. The other "yes" reply came from the only parent in the school I don’t like. Fortunately he bailed the morning of. Regardless of the lack of replies I still had one wingman, or rather wingwoman, with me for our bowling adventure.

I was excited. I had taken Arden bowling once before at a place appropriately named Pinz in Studio City. The place puts rails in the gutters so the little kids would always score and so the grown-ups could play like rock stars. And with Sam there, I just might get the chance to strut my stuff. Of course the day didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned.

My day technically started at 2:46 AM when Arden woke up from a “bad dream” about “shopping at Target at night” and restarted at 5:43 AM when Alex decided the day had officially begun. Normally if Alex gets up early we sneak down to my office with some Cheerios and she watches some Yo Gabba Gabba while I try and do absolutely nothing until 7:00 AM rolls around. But of course Arden decided this would be the day she got up early. So we started Arden’s first day off from school at 6:00 AM with Arden not wanting anything I was serving for breakfast and Alex deciding she needed a nap at 7:03 AM. And when I say she “needed a nap” I mean that’s when she started getting cranky. And of course with Arden being home from school, there was no way in hell Alex was gonna take a nap.

The morning was long, but uneventful, though I did charge Arden with “watching” her little sister for the first time while I took one of my legendary 30-second showers. But I spent 29-seconds of my shower thinking of every possible permutation of what could go wrong in a 30-second time span which meant I needed another shower as soon as I got out of the shower.

So the bowling alley. All I can say is “chaos.” Much of it internal. We arrived at 11:00 AM to find another mom, who didn’t respond to my email, waiting for us with her two kids. Then Sam arrived with her two kids and as we were all trying on our bowling shoes another parent unexpectedly arrived with their two kids. To lessen the disorganization I decided to just pay for everyone and let them pay me back when we got to our lanes. I should’ve known better than to try and do division while wrangling a bunch of kids (I think I ended up paying for Arden twice.) Anyway, as we started bowling another kid showed up with his uncle, but the games were locked into the computer system so I offered to give up my spot for the little kid. That actually worked out well because Alex was getting fussy and wanted to be held…the whole two hours we were there.

None of the kids had bowled before so I had to show them what to do while holding Alex in one arm. And no one seemed to know who’s turn it was even though the computer screen kept track of it for everyone. Around noon everyone was getting hungry and it fell on Alex and me to order some pizzas. It only took me a sweaty 45 minutes to figure out how to order a pizza, but eventually we managed it. Of course we ordered too little so I went hungry.

Meanwhile, after three frames Arden and another little boy were done with bowling because they had discovered those stupid toy vending machines where you pay a quarter for a mini Tupperware container filled with a sticker or a chipped super ball. Now I’m pretty sure Arden’s slightly above average in intelligence, but the kid she was playing with was definitely not MENSA bound. I gave them both two quarters to put in the machine, but then the boy came back to me empty handed and said, “Coin, coin.” I said, “What happened to the ones I gave you?” Apparently it was a rhetorical question. Meanwhile Arden handed me her prizes which included a plastic ring and a tattoo that said, "I love girls." The boy saw the ring and finally decided to speak, “Is that a coin?” I said, “No, that’s a ring.” A few minutes later I pulled my keys out of my pocket and the boy ran over to me again and said, “Is that a coin?” I said, “No, these are keys…and I’m using them to get away from you.” Okay, I didn’t really say the second part, but I wanted to.

On the ride home Alex started to drift off to sleep. I’d be damned if I was gonna let her have a catnap on the way home that would replace the real deal in her crib so I was forced to lower the back window and let the cold air slap her in the face, but this kid was tired and no amount of wind was gonna keep her up. Of course when the wind ultimately stopped and we pulled into the garage she was wide awake and would be until she went to bed that night. Part of the reason was because Arden refused to have “quiet time” (instead of fighting with her over naps these days we now let her play quietly in her room by herself for an hour) so I can get some "me" time? Hells no. So I can clean up after her before Mommy gets home.

The plan was for Jen to make one of her favorite meals that night, but she got caught in a meeting that was destined to run late and suggested I make the Chicken & Dumplings. Now I cook all the time. And I’m not half bad. I mean I can follow a recipe. However I had never attempted this particular dish which was in a Betty Crocker cookbook that had a copyright date of 1950. I must’ve read that damn recipe 16 times trying to figure out what the hell it was saying. It didn’t help that Arden was having a meltdown over which Disney Princess movie to watch and Alex was screaming in my ear the whole time. I had to text Jen twice during her meeting to see if I was understanding the recipe right. Apparently I wasn’t and I screwed up the dish. Beyond repair. Right in front of Jen as she walked in the door, tired and pissed off from her meeting. That night she ate a Lean Cuisine and I had a bowl of Cheerios. I don’t think there was much talking during "dinner."

So it also happened to be one of Jen’s workout nights, which meant I put Arden to bed (which takes about forty-five minutes) and she puts Alex to bed (which takes about five minutes.) But with Alex being overtired from the day she refused to take the bottle from Jen. And since I have the magic touch I got to put both kids to bed that night…only to have them both wake up on Day Two of Winter Break with runny noses.

In the photo: an actual shot from our bowling madness