Skip to main content

Even with Lily here, Willow gets Daddy all to herself

Willow, and a bruised Daddy, climbed to the top of Nashville.
On Wednesday, Willow got Daddy all to herself for a few hours, and the time included her first trip to the Adventure Science Center in Nashville. Even though the place was a bit "big kid" for Willow, she loved it.
Willow loved three attractions above all others: the tower, the ambulance and the giant water table. She also liked watching other kids, big and small, zipping around the exhibits.
The tower. Willow discovered the tower early on, much to Daddy's chagrin. I liked the tower, but if you've been to it, you might know why it was hard for me to keep up with a 2-year-old climbing to the top; tight crawls abound. But I tolerated those tight spots and kept up with Willow the best I could, and we made it to the top (and I didn't suffer too many bruises). Willow didn't want to leave that tower, but I practiced patience and persistence and eventually got her to go exploring elsewhere.
The ambulance. Now this thing was BORING to me, but Willow loved the ambulance, with all its bells and whistles and buttons, built into the floor. Willow spent more time in this relic than on any other exhibit, and parents of older kids tolerated her hogging the driver's seat (and the older kids, much to their credit, yielded the seat to this cemented-in tot). Willow turned the steering wheel and punched the radio's buttons over and over and over. Yawn. But I'm a good daddy who can stand weary-eyed by the immovable truck while his daughter has, well, the time of her life.
The water table. Now I'm sure this water gadget has a very important scientific lesson, but I didn't have a clue what was going on with it (and I don't think any of the bigger kids or their parents knew either). All it was to Willow was the world's greatest water table; it sure beats the heck out of the tiny thing we have in the backyard. Water cascaded down the table, and kids could place tiles
to force the water this way and that. I, and many of the parents, took part in the fun, sometimes hogging the tiles (I noticed some of the other parents actually grabbed tiles to give to their kids ... bunch of snoots!).
Willow and Daddy had a bunch of fun on this trip, and we'll be back a time or two this summer.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Daddy gets the afternoon all to himself

Few times in the course of stay-at-home daddyhood does an event like this happen. This, indeed, is historic. I get to take my tail out of this house and go do whatever I want (within legal, moral and ethical bounds, of course). By myself. Alone. Indeed, I say ... indeed. Cherish's mother and grandmother are coming to take care of Willow for the afternoon, giving me a much-earned afternoon to myself. And this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to find the manliest, biggest-waste-of-time, money-wasting, violent movie I can, and I'm going to lay down my wife's hard-earned dime, and I'm going to watch that movie. My pick: "Immortals." I read in the local paper this morning that "Immortals" was rated at only 1 1/2 stars. It's supposed to be a horrible movie. Good. I'm going to bask in the crappy escape from baby poo. I'm going to inhale the smell of stale popcorn and that what-the-heck-is-that?-pee? odor. And I'm going to ...

Adding a splash to the winter gray

Willow, Mommy and I went to the Y's pool on Sunday to take advantage of our membership and to do something summery in this dreary and cold weather. We had so much fun swimming and splashing, Willow and I went back on Tuesday. On Sunday, surprisingly, nobody else was at the pool, and the lifeguard seemed resigned to having to sit boringly in her stand. I have no problem with having an entire pool and a lifeguard all to myself, but, again, I was surprised nobody else was there, except for a few exercisers coming and going to use the steam room and the sauna (and a couple of guys hopped in the whirlpool for a few minutes). When Willow and I went on Tuesday, several people were in the pool, but they quickly scattered when the tot and I entered the pool. Maybe their time in the pool had come to a planned end. Maybe they didn't want to be in the water with someone who might pee or poop at any moment. After the initial scattering a couple of men came into the pool area and swam qui...

Today I work

We're traveling to Henderson, Tenn., for a long Thanksgiving weekend. That means: Good eating. Football. Hugs. Excitement for Willow. Giving thanks. Games. Family. And lastly, packing and hauling my little family down there. Yes, that last task is an enormous one (it's a big enough burden with just a husband and wife, but when you add a baby ... oh, my!). We leave tonight. So I know what lies ahead for me today. I'm at the keyboard now, steeling myself for the long day ahead. I have work to do. I've downloaded an app to my iPhone to help me pack for the new addition (Willow). The app is quite helpful, but it's overwhelming looking at the list and its 1,036,154 things to do. Do I even have enough time today to go through this list? And the app doesn't even begin to account for the things Mommy wants. If I were to add those requests to the list, we'd be up to ... just a sec ... calculating ... calculating ... here we go ... 3,176,203 things to...