I had been looking forward to Nate's first Father's Day almost (stress almost) as much as my first Mother's Day. I wanted him to have a good day and I think he did. We started the day off with some breakfast. I love to cook breakfast on the weekends anyway so Husband requested bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches and hash browns. Then, after breakfast there was some morning mischief (nothing unusual there):
After that, some Father's Day naps were in order:
As you can see in the background...I sacrificed my nap to do laundry. But I think Husband got to nap for a little bit.
After the naps we got ready for our Father's Day cookout (will be posting a few recipes soon!). Nate's mom, step dad, and brother came over for a yummy dinner and some playtime with Grant. But, as usual, Grant had to see what he could get away with. And I, as usual, had to be the bad guy. This is what "No" looks like:
And this is what "No" looks like if you don't immediately pick him up and tell him it's ok (which it's not, so I didn't...that just encourages, right?)
Terrible, isn't it? I'm not as heartless as I sound! I do pick him up! I just have to let him know what he's not supposed to do. It does break my heart, for the record.
But, overall, Nate said he had a good day which was what I hoped for. I did manage to snap ONE picture of Grant and Husband right before Grant's nap. Nate said a couple weeks ago that he can't really remember how small Grant used to be. And he was a scrawny little thing! But these two side by side show how big he's getting. And Husband still looks tired!
Today Grant started his second full week at his new daycare. He only did a partial week for his first week because of his eye infection which made last week is first Monday-Friday. So far - YAY! - it's going well. The people seem really nice and the set up is so SO much better than his previous daycare. However, Nate was part of a conversation one morning last week about biters (we had to sign a form about children biting). I know it's normal. Little kids bite. But one of the owners of the daycare made the comment that "Grant doesn't have hardly any teeth and he's already a biter". Uh oh. And then, last week and possibly the same day, Nate was there to pick up Grant and he was sitting on the floor crying. Why, you ask? He was trying to steal a little girl's pacifier - OUT OF HER MOUTH! He was crying because she wouldn't let him take it. Are we raising the daycare bully?
Perhaps this is how kids play, I don't know. I didn't do much babysitting as a teenager and I never had much experience with babies/small children before having my own. It's probably not helping that I let Grant wrestle his stuffed animals and, on occasion, me. But it was the biting that really worried me. Obviously not so worried that I couldn't find humor in the situation. I've literally had this song stuck in my head since Nate told me about the biting conversation (and I've been fighting the urge to sing it out loud in the office all day!):
I love Modern Family and I'm totally singing this to Grant tonight!
Brodie screams for ice cream. He really does. He gets so excited over his ice cream that he sounds like he's screaming. Yes, we are terrible doggie parents...we give him real ice cream (not every day). In my family we've always given our dogs real ice cream. There's something weird about those Frosty Paws and I can't see how they're any better for them than actual ice cream. But also, the little ice cream cups cost the same as Frosty Paws and you get three times as many. Sometimes I switch it up and buy him the sundae cups (yes, he even eats the chocolate) instead of plain vanilla. I've even come across sherbet cups. He's not picky. He'll eat any of it. We ran out of ice cream one day after he'd been promised it (you know, because he remembers stuff like that) so I froze some apple juice. Loved it.
Last week after Grant's check-up when we got home I let Brodie out as usual. He ended up staying out a little too long. I know this because he rarely "asks" to come inside. But it was apparently hot enough for him to come to the back door looking kind ragged and I could tell that hanging out under the deck wasn't cool enough that day. He deserved an ice cream (Ok, it was out of guilt - I may have forgotten he was outside) and he wagged his tail the entire time he was eating it.
After some playtime Grant ended up going down for a good nap. And with his belly full of a chocolate sundae Brodie enjoyed some baby-free peace and quiet relaxing in the sunny spot.
"He can pee standing up! He learned that a lot faster than I did. He's going to be ready to pee in a toilet soon." said Husband with excitement. Oh yes, came my reply - dripping with sarcasm, let's potty train our 9 month old! Obviously he is by no means ready to pee in a toilet. The reason for Husband's excitement is because EVERY time I put Grant in the bathtub in the past week he stood at the side of the tub and peed. Without fail every time. When I take off his diaper there is not the slightest indication that he has to go. Maybe it's the warm water? Who knows. But it makes him happy because he's grinning the whole time. Then he sits down and starts playing and I'm left standing there saying "Great, now you're playing in pee water." What to do? Change the water? I'm sure he's peed in the water before without my knowledge, yes? And it was only a little.
I am a state employee. I tend to make light-hearted jokes about state employees when people ask me what I do because people have two expectations of "state employees". They expect us to be lazy and they expect us to be fat. I feel like only one of those applies to me, but I prefer the term "pleasantly plump". I don't know what the rules are about me writing about my job online so I'll refrain from telling you my department and division. What I will tell you is that the main part of my job deals with the health paperwork of almost all "livestock" (this covers a lot of species!) moving in and out of our state and some poultry (I know that way more poultry/avian species are being moved that I don't get paperwork for - but really, that applies to a lot of animals). That's slightly telling, isn't it? I do other things too but it's mostly the health paperwork. I can also say that most of the people I work with aren't your typical lazy state employees and some of us actually enjoy helping the general public. Don't get me wrong. We have got some lazy, unhelpful people. And some that are just unenjoyable to work with or they feel like the rules don't apply to them so they get their way with everything. And the [insert name of elected official here] that department works for is a giant douche bag.
However, the people I work directly with are fun. Including me it's a group of five women so you can imagine the gossip flying around the office. There is a large room with three of us in it and then a smaller office with two more. We talk over the cubicles at each other which is apparently bad cubicle etiquette because we were given a handout by a co-worker detailing all the ways that we disrupt the work environment. But he or she no longer works in that room so we don't have to worry about cubicle etiquette and we happily shredded his or her handout.
Our boss is pretty laid back. He knows we cut up a lot but he knows we get our work done so he's ok with it. He and my co-workers put up with a lot from me. I joke around a lot in the office. And I'm constantly reading out loud the stuff on my paperwork that makes me laugh. For instance:
I know, my maturity level has reached a new low.
Doesn't that make you want a ground hog named Big Mamma? That one is on my "Wall of Fame".
This one requires more explanation. This is a health paper on a horse. And EVERY TIME I see a horse paper and it says the horse is for "pleasure" it makes me giggle. I know what they mean, but I just can't help it. I find it funny!
There are a million more examples that make me laugh. I get to see all the names that people give to their horses. Most are quite stupid (but that also sums up my feelings about the owners of the horses) but my favorite is and always will be Banana Pancakes. Or the vet who writes health papers for a traveling petting zoo type thing and every time he writes one for the porcupines he spells it "Porky Pine". But this is the same vet who wrote one for a Donkey and marked his species as "other" and then wrote in Assine. Even with my minimal animal knowledge I knew that wasn't real (Apparently a lot of people I work with know this vet and said he went to vet school out of the country. They said that's what you do when you can't get into vet school in the US.). We also get all kinds of crazy phone calls from people that make our days interesting. The crazier, the better because at least it gives us something to laugh at ("Um...hi. I found a dead bird on the street outside my office. So I brought it in and put it in our freezer. My boss is really mad at me and she wants it out of there. She says I have to clean the freezer. Do you guys have somewhere I can take it to be tested for the bird flu?" Hahahahaha!) So, yes, we're state employees who have some fun at work. But we get do get our work done and, for the most part, I think we try to be helpful to people.
