Today was fairly uneventful. Most of the day Saturday and again last night I was babysitting a 3 year old. His grandfather had bypass surgery so Robyn and Mark were at the hospital. The world of a child is an interesting thing. On Saturday, Robyn and Mark went to the Pitt game with another couple; Gary and Jody. Gary and Jody have two children and Robyn and Mark have one. I, at the moment, have none. So, it was decided that I would take Jacob to McDonald's for dinner (which was not my choice by any stretch of the imagination, his mother put that idea in his head). So, he had to be dressed for the weather, so I got him a little Pitt outfit complete with hat and got him out of his PJ's. Then he was gone. So, I had to chase him around the house trying to get clothes onto him. Did the four adults with actual parenting experience offer any assistance? No, they just stood and laughed. It took me about 35 minutes to get him fully clothed. Then the errands that we ran before dinner would have taken me about 30-45 minutes. It took us 2 1/2 hours. We got home just in time to see the Pens get stomped by Tampa Bay of all people.
Last night was also kind of amusing. Since Mark and Robyn are remodeling their kitchen, they've been eating out. So, it was either take Jacob to dinner last night or try and defrost something for the microwave. When Terri and I picked him up from daycare, we started driving down the main road looking for a good place to eat. I finally saw a Lone Star Steakhouse. I was in the wrong lane to make a left hand turn so I pulled into a parking lot to turn around and head towards the restaurant. That's when I hear this little voice from the backseat..."Bill, can we eat at the place with the playroom right there?" Turns out, I had pulled into a parking lot across from a Burger King with a big playland for kids. So, instead of a nice juicy steak, I got a whopper.
The playland itself was an interesting experience. The majority of the stuff is above your head. The kids climb up a staircase and crawl through some tunnels to get to a slide, a helicopter, or a rocketship. It was fairly cool and there was certainly nothing like it when I was child, but it made me think. What if your child decided he didn't want to come down? What if he got scared and couldn't come down? I'm certainly not going to fit up there to follow him. I'll end up like Augustus Gloop in the chocolate tube. They'd be sending the oompa-loompas in after me.
Anyway, not too much else going on. Hopefully the Pens will respond to the shelling they got Saturday by handily beating the New York Rangers, which are just the Pens branch East anyway. They have 5 ex-Pens on their squad. Oh well, we shall see.