Daddy got some orders of the day after Gramps headed back to the hotel… put Nicholas’ high chair together or be banished from the realm forever. OK, it wasn’t quite like that but there was the definite sense of dire consequences. One high chair…yes m’aam…how high did you want it?!?
Today’s fun was a shopping trip with Gramps and Grammy (and hoo boy, if you thought we went gonzo nuts at Longaberger, you ain’t seen nothing yet). Before we headed out to the mother ship (Babies ‘R Us), Mommy and Daddy had a meeting at St. Eugene’s in Wendell for a class on baptism. Guess they don’t want Daddy doing cannonballs off a diving board into the holy water or something (probably wise on their part…Daddy used to be the terror of lifeguards everywhere…you think you’d be dry on those high chairs but I’ve got can openers and preacher seats executed with deadly accuracy that say otherwise…BWAAHHHAHAAAHHAAAHHHA!).
Well, we thought we had a meeting…unfortunately, the chap who conducts them was out of town and we didn’t get the notification. Oh well…when life hands you lemons, make lemonade! That gave us more time to shop in Raleigh. WOO HOO!
If you thought we were bad in this store, we’re enthusiastic amateurs at best. Gramps is the consummate professional here. Before we knew it, we were wheeling a pair of super fancy car seats out to Moby Dodge and then heading back for round 2! We’re talking about seats that F-14 pilots would be envious of having (only without the explosive bolts and ejection handles and those pilots hate bailing out anyway!). Once over the threshhold, now it was time to raid their discount racks whilst Daddy did the bottle feeding thing and changed Nicholas’ diaper.
One nice thing about Babies ‘R Us is that they’re pretty progressive in their kitting of the men’s washroom. We have found out that most places, if they even have one, will place the changing station in the women’s room. CLUE TO CLUELESS BUSINESSES: GUYS CHANGE DIAPERS, TOO!
I’ve been trained to deal with these occasional biological and chemical situations, I’m borderline competent in that department, in fact! And nothing bothers me more than an implicit sexist and patronising statement where the changing station is in only one of the washrooms! You’ll get points for HAVING a changing station…but if you’re going to put it in one, put it in the other washroom as well! More and more fathers take their children on days out to give Mommy a bit of a break…so cut us a break too, capiche?
Whilst the loading down of Moby Dodge was impressive, more so was Nicholas’ first encounter with solid food. OK, it was rice cereal and breast milk but the important thing is that it’s a heck of a lot more solid than what he’s used to, eh?. Now the books say that introduction will be a slow and somewhat frustrating process at first…the baby’s instinct is to push out with the tongue much like they do with the bottle.
They didn’t really reckon on a couple of things:
- Our prediction that Nicholas was never going to be one who wouldn’t be interested in the groceries.
- How quickly Nicholas took to the solid food!
Yep, you heard it here, folks! A fair amount of that cereal in one of the Longaberger custard cups went into that child lickety-split! Ever hear the Norse myth of Thor, Loki and Logi in the eating contest? The short version is that Thor (the Norse god of thunder) had great pride and in his travels, one of his hosts was set on bringing him down a peg or two. First up was an eating contest between Loki (the Norse god of tricks) and Logi and a huge platter of meat. Whilst Loki did eat the meat very fast, Logi not only at the meat but the bones and the platter as well! Of course, Logi is wildfire and of course, nothing consumes things quite as fast. Well, Nicholas was certainly playing Logi to the hilt… 🙂
After a pleasant pork roast (we weren’t quite as fast as Logi!), it was time to get down and dirty with Mexican train dominoes. Daddy decided to take that a bit literally when one of the el-cheapo dining room chairs decided that it was tired of being a chair and was more interested in a new career as kindling. That combined with 9.8 meters per second squared downward momentum (gravity) meant a sore bum and one of the metal folding chairs for the rest of the evening! I guess we’ll be looking at a new dining room set (something we were planning anyway… JUST NOT NOW, DARN IT!). 🙂