My son woke up around 9:15, so I quickly went downstairs to brush my teeth, fill his bottle, and otherwise get ready for the day (our upstairs bathroom has been under construction for roughly a month- that's another story for another blog). By the time I got back upstairs, he was asleep again. I took this opportunity to take a shower and get dressed. He was up soon after that. For the second day in a row, I got him dressed before lunch.
It was raining heavily as my wife left for work in the morning, but it stopped soon after. A combination of the uncertainty of the weather, the late wakeup, and my recent foot pain caused me to forgo my 5-mile training run. Instead I chose to watch episode 28 of Deadwood and thought a little about running while my son had his breakfast. I'm trying to watch shows with questionable content before he starts talking. If you've ever seen a few minutes of Deadwood, you know why.
By the time he finished his cereal bar, it was more or less time for lunch. We played for a little bit (to work off the calories, of course), and I prepared a bag of distractions for the day's adventure: band practice.
A few years ago, some of my coworkers and I started a band at school. We played at the school talent show and on the last day of school for a couple years, but our goal was always to put on our own concert. Last spring, we did. We got a lot of kids to perform with us (that's a 7th grader playing drums in the video), charged admission, and used the proceeds to buy our auditorium some much-needed stage lights. The night was a success, and we have since been asked to play at a couple of other events. One of these events is taking place later this year at a local bar. Our principals take part in an U.G.L.Y. Bartender event each year, and this year we will be providing the entertainment. Because the band usually practices after school and my wife is still working when practice begins, my son will occasionally be accompanying me.
I knew I couldn't just let my son run free in our rehearsal space (the school's band room), so I packed up a small play pen to keep him contained. In the interest of full disclosure, this device was originally purchased for the purpose of allowing a former rabbit of ours to frolic in our yard. It's also very clean and the perfect size for a toddler, so get over it. While it worked great to this end, he was also able to push it towards the very dangerous hi hat, so I had to use a combination of several other percussion instruments to hold him back. While he didn't like this at all, it saved his fingers from getting caught in between the cymbals.
I felt bad for forgetting his little drumsticks, so I gave him a drum to smack around while we played. As soon as I put it down, he started banging on it. He also "sang" a little bit when our singer began. Occasionally when the actual musicians (remember- I'm a drummer) had to stop and learn a chord progression, I would give him my sticks. He does this cute hybrid march/ walk thing when he gets a pair of drumsticks in his hands. We managed to get about 50 minutes of decent rehearsal time in before he decided it was time to go. Considering it was a little past his normal nap time, I was thrilled with his tolerance. I packed up all of his (and my) toys, and we were off. I turned the stereo in the car down and planned a route home that would give him plenty of time to take a nap.
The route took us over one of our local "mountains" (home of our Pagoda), through the rolling hills of Lower Heidelberg (home of another famous, yet far less interesting, local), and finally back home to the anticipating arms of Mommy. The daddy-only portion of Day 2 was complete, and we had a long weekend consisting of an R-Phils game, a trip to Hersheypark, a visit from Gram, and an impending hurricane to look forward to. See you on Monday...?
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