A Day Off!

Monday was so much fun!

I took the day off of work. There was no school on Monday, and I was reluctant to put Nathan in daycare for an entire day. (The last two times we did that, he never made it past 10:30). We had hoped for my in-laws to be able to watch him, but they had a funeral to attend out of town that weekend. I requested the time off of work and got it.

I wanted to go out and spend some time with Nathan. We don't get to do that very often anymore. So I suggested going to the movies. That's a rare treat for both of us. Figuring that most parents would welcome the opportunity to sleep in on a day off of work and school, I opted on the earliest showing of the movie, hoping to avoid the crowds. Nathan picked the Santa Clause 3 movie. The theater was empty! There was one group of four parents and four kids way up behind us, and a mother and child at the far end of our row, and that was it! I couldn't believe how vacant the place was.

On the drive to the theater, I felt Nathan grabbing at my jacket collar and hair (I think he was just trying to hold on to my seat for leverage), and asked him if he was buckled in. He said he was, and I expressed surprise that he was able to just lean forward and grab the seat like that. I told Nathan he was getting so big! Then I began to tease him, telling him he can't be be that big, he's just a baby. He always pretends to be super annoyed with that, insisting that he's not a baby, and I play along and wail about how it was just yesterday that I was carrying him on my shoulder and stuff. As much as he complains about my calling him a baby, he seems to get a big kick out of the game, and we both play it to the hilt. At one point, I was saying something like, "You can't grow up, you're just my little baby!" and Nathan grabbed the back of my seat, giving it a shake, and announced, "GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF, WOMAN!" I just burst out laughing. Geez, I had tears in my eyes, I was laughing so hard. Where does he get this stuff?

Nathan had a hard time getting moving in the morning, so we left a bit late. We arrived about ten minutes after the movie was supposed to start. Since another one started in less than a half hour, I suggested we go to that one, and kill some time getting munchies and hitting the arcade. That worked out quite well, since that way our time in the arcade was limited (and helped limit the spending). Nathan had the entire arcade to himself! The driving games drew him like a magnet, and they had a bunch of them. He was getting hungry so we hit the lobby. I couldn't believe what they charge for a bag of popcorn and a couple soft drinks. Ouch. But what the heck. It's not like we do this often. We splurged.

The movie was cute. I was curious to see the new character that Martin Short played, and enjoyed him a great deal. They looked like they must have had a blast making that movie. There were some scenes that the kids really went nuts over, particularly one scene where the reindeer are passing gas, and snickering about it, and other scene where Santa's pants catch on fire. Nathan was just in a fit of giggles.

On the way home, we entertained ourselves singing Christmas carols, and got very silly. It was a great time. Later, we went to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, and a bunch of other relatives, including a couple of young kids. To my great surprise, Nathan played extremely well with the two boys, and even shared his video games with them. I was very proud of him.

It was such a nice day!