11-07-09

Got up this morning to check the mail and my blood sugar and have some breakfast, and in the mailbox was a belated birthday card for Pearl from her Poppy (my Father) with fifty bucks to get her something special. It was a very nice card, it made me a little misty. I had got back in regular communication with my Father shortly before Pearl was born after about 9 years of nothing. It has been nice to be back in touch with him, I feel this new relationship with him is much healthier than anything we had in the past. I am glad that Pearl gets to have a Bumpa, a Poppy, and an Opa who all love her very much, not every little girl gets 3 grandfathers. Of course she has a Nana and a Mimsy too, all that love makes a very happy munchkin.

After eating breakfast and playing on the computer a little bit I realized that I was still a little tired so I laid back down to read and then sleep some more. A couple of hours later I joined the land of the conscious again and decided that the family needed to get out and do stuff. Mommy and I had been talking about going to the park for the last couple of weeks but have not gotten around to going for some reason or another. Today we were going to the park come hell or high water, after cashing Pearl's birthday check and getting some gas the park at Lake Minnehaha was our next stop. We drive by the park all the time and knew there were swings and slides and other manner of playground apparatus, however, upon closer inspection we discovered it was actually 2 playgrounds in 1. One part was for older children with slides, climbing walls, cargo nets, and swings. The other side for children of Pearls age with low to the ground animal statues, and "diaper" swings.

Kim and I both remarked about how when Pearl is a little older there is some pretty fun looking stuff on the "big kid" side of the playground. Both the sides of the playground have astro-turf instead of grass so there is reduced worry of fire ants, though it's a little more rough on the knees for a wobbly walker like Pearl. I think having red knees is much better than hundreds of fire ants swarming and stinging. Pearl loved being at the park, laughing and clapping in the swing, fearless in approaching other children and people that were there.

At one point she was walking around and just strolled up to the mother of one of the other children at the park who was sitting on a bench, Pearl put her hand on the woman's knee and looked up at her, smiled, and did her little wave that she does. When it started getting dark, about 5:30 now, we thought we'd get going but decided that we needed to come to the park a lot more often. We already have definite plans to return to the park tomorrow, a little earlier though so we can stay longer. Perhaps Kim and I will start to be more social as well and meet some other parents, at least we could find some kids for Pearl to play with on a regular basis.

After the park we went to cash my "paycheck" at amscott and then over to Toys-r-Us to find "something special" to buy with the money that Poppy sent to Pearl. We looked at blocks, play sets, scooters, books, and all manner of cool stuff that I wished I could have bought 1 of everything. After a little more than an hour of searching for the perfect thing to get we had decided on a bright red Radio Flyer "Scoot-About" with a bell and tassels on the handle bars. Pearl got her first bicycle, after putting it together, giving it to her, and outing her on it I realized this was a very special occasion. I got quite misty seeing Pearl on her first bike, again, I've been a ball of emotions all day. Pearl would like to say thank you to her Poppy for her new bike, she really loves it!!!

I have made a couple of changes to the blog today, if you hadn't noticed. I decided I wanted to make it into a blog for me to write about being a daddy, so I took the other authors off. Don't worry it has not affected your ability to post comments, and sorry for the lack of warning about the changes. If any of you would like me to post something on your behalf I will certainly do that, just email me and I will post it. I have also added more friends and family to the update email messages sent out when I update the blog.