One heckuva weekend!

OK so I promised not to make this a mom-blog (OK Dad-blog) right outta the gate.  But this weekend has been such a whirlwind that I've decided to bend this rule a bit.  (Plus with the lack of updates to the blog, I find myself looking for things to keep the the readership appeased.  Readership is a two handed bitch-goddess. She gives with one hand with the higher self-esteem that comes with a complement from a good blog post and takes with the other - always demanding more more more!!)  So, I'll say this:  This is not a blog for Ben.  (Though if there were more updates recently, perhaps, I wouldn't have to go the easy route and blog about my fantastic kid.  I'm just sayin' Mr. Contributor....)

Now that Ben's gone, let's have a frank discussion about him behind his back.  That guy is a jerk.  A real knee biter.  Man, that felt so good that I may need to get a little more off my chest later in the blog.  Anyway, this weekend....

So, this last week, I decided to have a play date with some of Sam's friends from school.  Since it was going to be crazy hot and I am crazy cheap, I decided just to have a sprinkler party in our back yard.  Only one of his friends RSVPed, so it was going to be a really nice and small gathering.  Good news is that we should be able to get through this on the cheap.  Bad news is that we had to spend pretty much every spare moment cleaning to get the house ready.  (We kinda let it go in the past few months.)

Fast forward to Saturday morning.  Everything was ready; house was cleaned, Sam was super-stoked, I even got a new sprinkler cuz I thought that my old sprinkler was dying.  (Turns out that I just needed to clean it out with the tool that comes with every sprinkler that I just didn't know was there.  O well - two sprinklers!  you know that it was going to be a good party there.)  So, I just changed Sam upstairs and he was happily started butt-scooting down the stairs himself.  (He's been very good about the stairs for about 8 months, so I've been getting more and more lax while watching him go down.)  So, I look at him playing about half way down the stairs with one of his toys and he is bending down to play with the toy.  I'm guessing that everyone can guess where this is going.  About 3 seconds later he is all way way down the stairs on his face.  No serious injury, but plenty of tears and it looks like he's got a bloody lip.  We get his a snack (since it was snack time) and he's still crying.  Two minutes later, his friend shows up and all of the tears go away. I think that we need to have more play dates with his friend.

Lemme say that this play date was great!  The kids had an absolute blast with the sprinklers.  Then, I put a hose nossle on and they had a hoot shooting each other, the grass, and me with the water. They shared fantastically.  Then, it was on to hot dogs at lunch.  Again, went really well.  Each of the kids had two (2!!) hotdogs, and a good selection of fruit without too much fuss.  Sadly, we had to cut it off after lunch since it was nap time.  I'm not sure about his friend, but Sam slept about as well as I have seen this year.  Woot! 

Rest of the day was pretty uneventful, outside of a little potty training.  After Sam went down for bed that night, I watched "Better off Dead" for the first time straight through.  Since I  had Comedy Central for the past 15 years, I  had naturally seen parts here and there, but this was the first time straight through.  I didn't realize just how 80s that movie was.  But in a good way.  (Also, side note.  I caught a bit of Predator on Spike the other night.  *MAN* that was very 80s too.  Special effects, dialog, everything.  Never really hit me before just how dated that movie was. Still a great movie, But all they needed as a John Hughes cameo for me to have an 80s-gasm right then and there.)

And since we have a lull in the story time, let's talk about Ben again.  I mean, really?  Your initials spell out a file extension on an OS that you don't even like?  Nerd!  *AND* you wear glasses sometimes and contacts other times?  Make up your mind, sir.  We're at war...

And now we come to Sunday...  Now, *this* was a long day.  Started out with Sam staying quiet until about 7:45, so we got to sleep in a bit.  Then, I decided to really get in good with the potty training that morning.  I spent about 2 hours trying to get him to pee on the potty, but he wasn't having any of it....  I was getting more and more frustrated and then he said that he just wanted to wear a diaper.  Now, all of the books say to let them guide the process, so that's cool, except that I feel like I wasted the morning.  So, I change him into the diaper and excuse myself to cool out a little.

When I come back, Sam notices me, drops his markers than he's coloring with, shouts "Daddy!" and comes running at me.  This isn't all that uncommon and not cause for alarm.  Except this time, I am standing right next to the corner of the ottoman.  And Sam is so excited that he runs up, jumps into the legs and then just falls to the floor.  In the process, he knocks his cheek into the corner of the ottoman and now has a really nice shiner.  Ugh... I'm just hoping that CPS isn't called tomorrow when he goes to school.

So, we get Sam an early lunch and try to do an early nap since we're going to see the Wiggles in concert at 4 (and sometimes Sam will sleep right past 4).  He does a great job with lunch, but sadly really isn't interested in napping until about 2 or so.  Namely, about an hour before we need to leave...  So, it turned out to be a short nap that I  had to wake him from (it took about a minute of rubbing his back to wake him...) and he was all sleepy going into the Wiggles.  But the good news is that he was super-excited to be there and had a great time.

Now, let me say this...  The Wiggles were freaking amazing.  They were on-stage, high energy for a little over 90 minutes.  (Obviously, they changed out actors so everyone would have a rest throughout.)  But they are professionals, so what's the big deal?  Three things:
1 - They had a show earlier in the day.
2 - They had just come from Atlanta last night (where they also presumably had two shows in the same day).
3 - Most of the Wiggles proper are over 50.

Lemme 'splain about that last point.  One of the Wiggles, Jeff, is 57 years old. He on stage hanging on monkey bars upside down, climbing human pyramids, doing handstands, and just having a great time doing it.  Also, at one point, he pulled up his pant legs to do some silly thing with a hula hoop.  All that I can say is that dude's got stronger legs at 57, than I  have ever had.  It's like that episode of Scrubs where Kelso shows off his legs. 

And speaking of Scrubs, don't take my word for it that the Wiggles are Awesome.  Take Dr. Cox's.  For us, they only opened with Big Red Car.  They closed with "Hot Potato".  (Though, of course, they pronounced it "Po -TAH - to."  Aussies!)

And one other fun story about the concert.  On the ticket, Joy noticed that it said something along the lines of the cast can be changed out without notice.  We giggled.  I mean it's not like you can really replace one of the Wiggles.  They are kinda playing themselves.  (OK, you can't do that *again*.  Sam Wiggle replaced Greg Wiggle a few years ago due to medical problems.)  Sure enough, 2 minutes to curtain, an announcement goes out that Ringo Zawergfasdfsiewnce was going to be filling in for Murray Wiggle.  Son of a ....  The one Wiggle that Sam always goes on an on about is Murray.  Dammit.  O well.   The cool thing is that the Wiggles acknowledged that Ringo was different and kinda played at it a bit.  They started off with handstands and Ringo's timing wasn't quite right, as he was the last one to break the handstand by like 5 seconds.  So, after the song, Greg (who was sporting a shaved head look) comes over to him and says "Ringo, I know that it's your first day on the job, but you can't just hold the handstand longer than the guys who have been doing this for 20  years." 

All in all, *great* experience.  Well, outside of the whole $30 in "convenience" fees.  Freaking Ticketmaster BS.  I'd definitely recommend the live Wiggles show to anyone.  Well, anyone with kids.  But not creeps.  Creeps like Ben.  To whom I would steadfastly *not* recommend The Wiggles.  (Either live or on DVD...)

So, though this weekend was filled with a few downs, the ups definitely balanced them out.  Now, on to Monday!