Weekend Alone

Had to start with a picture of Papa and Andy since it was so cute. Papa had mastered the art of putting Andy to sleep as demonstrated in this photo. And Tania can attest to the fact that we haven't quite figured out how to repeat the magic without him.

So, the first weekend alone since Andrew arrived. Oh, and the plans we had! Friday night was Weeds night. No, we weren't going to smoke dope. But we had a marathon evening of watching one of our favourite new TV shows starring Mary-Louise Parker (of West Wing fame) http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/home.do. The show is written by Jenji Kohan (former writer for "Mad About You", "Sex and the City" and "Will & Grace" and is simply the most clever writing of any show on TV since the West Wing. It's about a suburban mom whose husband dies so she has to turn to dealing weed to support her family. Not for everyone I suppose, but has us in stitches.

Saturday was going to be such a big day. We told Jacob all week about the Father/Son soccer league (finally he no longer calls it football) for which we had signed him up. We built it up and up even though it was only a half-hour class in which 3 year olds learn the basics of kicking the ball. It was our big day out together - Daddy "boss" and Jacob "boss" - no Mommy and no Andy! Mommy diligently packed us an almond butter & jelly sandwhich, hard-boiled eggs, pretzels (aka quetzels) and diet root beer. We drove over to the field together pumped up about S-O-C-C-E-R!!! Yeah, man. Cool! When we arrived we walked through the sloshy, wet grass (we're headed for the wettest Summer in Bay Area history) - our shoes getting muddier with every step. I was already starting to imagine Mommy's reaction when we got home and I was conjuring up responses such as, "how can we play soccer without getting muddy?"

We arrived on the spot of the soccer lesson to start the beginning of the rest of our happy lives together as father and son. My little sportsman and I primed for afternoons of kicking balls, shooting hoop, swimming in the pool and playing tag. There were about 10 other sets of 3 year olds and their parents. For a Father/Son league there sure were a lot of Mommies and daughters. Could it have been Tania's line to talk me into going and leaving her at home with Oprah? We waited patiently for the instructor to arrive. And waited. And waited. And waited. I guess you can tell where this all ends. How could a park organised soccer league be so callous and irresponsible to organise a soccer league and then not send an instructor? We spoke with somebody from the class that was to start before ours who said that they had already been waiting for 45 minutes and also had no instructor. Rat bastards! You can see how thrilled Jacob was when we got home.

Oh well, we went to the park in stead. A little girl tripped and skinned her hands and knee with no mother in site. I helped her out and saw a panicked mother returning from her car feeling guilty. I knew she would be thinking, "I only took my eyes off her for 30 seconds, I'm not a bad mom!" Next I experienced an amazing coincidence. When the crying stopped and we had returned to the scene of the crime I found out that the girl was the infamous Lilly from Jacob's JCC class at pre-school. He had been talking about Lilly for weeks and it was she who had fallen in front of me. So Jacob said hello and she gave him a big hug. When we went to leave her mother told her to give Jacob a kiss. She reached in and Jacob gave her "the Heisman". But she slipped beyond his guard and got in a peck on the cheek. Jacob blushed. And then he wiped it off. I swear! Human nature, hey?

Saturday night Tania and I had a babysitter and headed out for Southern food at Nola's in Palo Alto. We started it with the all important Mojito and Margharita (never mind that neither of those are Southern - they did the trick). Next we had "Foo King Good Spring Rolls" (no joke). Come to think of it - that wasn't Southern either, was it? Oh well, us Californians are a bit eclectic like that. For our main dish we had fried chicken and pork chops with corn bread and for dessert beignets. So I guess we finished with Southern food but the important thing was that we had a night alone, which felt great. Tania is feeling much better thanks to sleep, Prednisone steroids and an occasional drink or two.

Sunday was a relaxed day with the family, a little crossword action, some emails, lots of tag and a lot of wondering why we stuffed ourselves so much the night before. And, of course, it was Sopranos night! I guess we sound like TV addicts, but we are making up for so many years of bad TV when we lived in England. Anyway, here's the full set of Jacob and Myron/Andy photos that you can click through if you're interested. Next post in a day or two.

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