The wife has an off-site meeting all day tomorrow, so I have to babysit all day. I actually say "babysit" just to make people mad, since whenever I do say it, they scream "It's not babysitting!! It's called parenting!!"

Whatever. In the end of the day, it's an adult taking care of a 2-year old all day, so it's babysitting. When I say "Lauren, don't run around with the new Cutco chef knife," then THAT'S parenting. But changing pullups and cleaning up fingerpaint and flipping around to the various kid's shows on tv, that's just babysitting.

I don't want you to think I don't appreciate how hard it is to be a stay at home mom that also works out of the home. My wife is a saint in more ways than you know, and being home for ten days thru the holidays reminded me of how tough it can be. It can also be rewarding, especially if you aren't looking for it.

Anywho, I get to do this once in a while, so I thought I would run down the list of things I will probably get to (or have to) do during my day home with Lauren.

1) Remind her that "we" don't throw things over our heads in the house. While doing it with a balloon is okay, doing it with a miniature stroller is not.

2) Eat butter, or at least give her butter to eat. I remember liking butter and margarine as a kid, but not like this. If she even hears the lid come off the butter dish, she's at my hip like a police dog, index finger extended, saying "butter please daddy." So I cut her off a pat of butter, put it on her finger, pat her on the head, and send her on her way.

3) Taking a leisurely walk thru our neighborhood Super WalMart. This is good for killing an hour or so, and she especially enjoys the lobster tank and the WalMart pet department, which consists of about 30 tanks of common fish, frogs and snails that are all demonstrating about a 65% mortality rate. By the way, we are quiet there, so as not to wake all of the "sleeping" fishes.

4) Play-do. I do not recall liking it so much as a kid or hating it so much as an adult, but that stuff is terrible. It's tough to clean up, impossible to get out of carpet, and the parts are all impossible to clean. but it'll kill 45 minutes, so why not?

5) At some point, I will be asked to vacate whatever sofa we are both sitting on at the time. Lauren is famous for her moments of me time, and I'm sure tomorrow will have several of them.

6) This will be the bane of my existence all day: "Me watch new Dora." I've watched that new damned Dora the Explorer movie approximately 648 times since Christmas Day, and I hate it very very much. However, she loves it, so we watch it. The upside of Dora is that Lauren is accidentally learning Spanish. When she is jumping over something, she looks at us and says "Salto." It impresses strangers, and I guess that makes it worth it.

7) We will most assuredly brush and fingerpaint. This is far easier to clean up than the play-do, although you wouldn't think that it is. If the weather's nice (which except for cloudiness, it's supposed to be), we will probably spend several hours on the deck and in the driveway doing this.

8) Napping. God willing, she will take a nap tomorrow. She has taken one for five days in a row, which is a record as of late. She is to the point now where she is only napping about 3 or 4 out of 7 days, so you never know. But even if she doesn't, she'll sit and play in her crib for an hour and a half or so, and that's good for both of us at the midpoint of the day.

9) We will most assuredly play the guitar. She got a fabulous blue guitar with flowers on it for christmas, and she loves (LOVES) to play it and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for us. It's very funny and very sweet.

10) At some point, I hope we have 10 minutes like we did last night where I can lay on the sofa and she will just climb up and lay on me and watch tv. Maybe right before naptime or something, but those are the ten minutes that I cherish more than any other. They're rare, which makes them greater, but that is easily my favorite part of being a parent.

So there's my Friday. I'll let you know if something different happens, but I doubt it will.

(Actually, i think tomorrow may be either a running blog or an hourly update about what we're doing).

Thanks for reading...