I have been a single dad since Thursday morning, so this is my last 4 days.
Thursday - Started a crock-pot meatloaf, and made Peter breakfast. Dropped Peter off at school, went to work and worked on my biostatistics lab for Friday in the morning. In the afternoon I took my ecology lab out to Lake Charleston and electro shocked fish on both sides of the levee. Went over to the school and picked Peter up. Came home and dealt with an incident report. got that straightened out and gave out candy to the few brave souls that went out trick-or-treating in the pouring rain. Passed out.
Friday - Made Peters lunch, fed him breakfast and dropped him off at school, then went to work to teach my biostatistics lab. Showed them how to do one-way and two-way balanced factorial ANOVAs in Excel, how to do an unbalanced 2-way factorial ANOVA in Excel (if you like having a sharp stick poked in your eye) and then showed them how smart people do it in SAS and really smart people do it in R. I'm not sure who got the worse end of that lab. Then spent the next 3 hours explaining to a colleague how I analyzed his data and why I did not analyze it the way he wanted it analyzed, i.e. Why the data could not be used to answer the questions he wanted to answer. Vegged out in the office listening to music way too loud on the Airmotiv 5s for the next 3 hours. Picked up Peter at school, took him to his piano lesson, came home, ate some leftover meatloaf and went out trick-or-treating for the next 3 hours. Sort of cleaned up the house, made Peter take a shower and passed out.
Saturday - Made breakfast (blueberry waffles and chicken-sage sausage) and a shitload of coffee (for me). Then took him to the regional finals for the Kiwanis soccer shootout. Hung around there for about two and a half hours, but he won his age division. Took him to lunch at Los Potrillos to celebrate. Then went to Walmart and the grocery store for more food ( if you have never seen a nine year old eat, it is impressive). Came home and unloaded, then headed out to the soccer fields since he wanted to practice. Spent two hours honing my bruises out there until it got ridiculously windy. Came home and hung out with the dogs for a bit, then went out and had Thai food for dinner (did I mention how much a 9 year-old eats?). Came home, cleaned up the house and ourselves, watched ManU beat Fulham on the DVR and passed out.
Sunday - Woke up bright and early and made Peter breakfast and started a turkey in the crock-pot. Rushed around getting ready for church and made it to church with 1 minute to spare. What's this? No one is here? Oh yeah! Time change! Hung out for the next hour at Cracker Barrel where Peter had breakfast #2 and I had breakfast # 1. Did our due diligence at church then headed up to Champaign. First stop Dick's Sporting Goods to try on turf shoes. "No we need a size 6. 5 1/2 is exactly 1/2 size too small. I now see why you are working in Dicks, Dick". I make the mistake of letting Peter look at clothes. "Dad, isn't this $50 Underarmour shirt just awesome." Cha-Ching. Next up is Best-buy to look at some iPad covers. Let's see one in a shade of blue that should not be legal and another in a shade of pink that should not be displayed. On the way out, "Dad, they have the new Scribblenauts unmasked game for the WiiU!" Cha-Ching. Stopped at Binny's for a sanity check, and some supplies. Then off to Target to check on some shelving. Finally found someone who worked there, "So where is the heavy-duty shelving you have on sale?" "Right there in front of you." "Oh sorry, my mistake, I did not realize that technology has progressed so far that they are able to now produce heavy-duty cardboard." On the way out, "Dad, look at these Minecraft figures. Aren't they awesome?" Cha-Ching. "Dad, can we stop at the Sushi place?" At least I got one piece of the Dragon roll. Drove home, stopped at the Fine Arts Center to pick up Peters coat which I left there on Friday after his lesson. Came home, ate some turkey, fixed a manhattan! and checked out Head-Case.
You know what? I wouldn't change a thing, even if I could.