Daddy / Daughter Evening

Last Friday was one of those hallowed occasions that Lauralee circles on the calendar and anxiously anticipates: Girls Night Out. Every time she goes to Girls Night Out, I'm left at home to ponder many things, and it's not uncommon for me to drift off into a philosophical tangent -- when I really should be...you know...feeding the kids and stuff.

I often wonder why Guys Night Out has never caught on in my circle of friends. Perhaps it's because I don't have enough friends to make a complete circle. Still, I wonder why Guys Night Out has not caught on among my arc of friends. I think about this when I really should be...you know...giving the kids a bath and stuff.

If the definition of Girls Night Out is just a night where the ladies don't have to watch the kids, then I guess I do get Guys Night Out pretty regularly. I just don't spend them with other guys. I have Guys Night Out with the lawnmower. Last Saturday I had a Guys Afternoon Out with a new ceiling fan. I really shouldn't be complaining, I guess. Especially since I should be...you know...putting the kids to bed and stuff.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one: Last Friday Lauralee had a Girls Night Out. To her credit, she took James with her, leaving me to watch only Emma. Emma's been around for awhile now and I'm getting pretty used to her.

We're going to be moving Emma into a toddler bed sometime soon, and we thought that maybe it would be a good idea to prepare her for this change. The crib she currently sleeps in has an assembly option to remove one of the side rails to make it seem more like a bed than a crib. We thought we'd give this a try, so I reassembled the crib in the new configuration. I called Emma up to her room. She seemed to love the idea of a "big girl bed" that she could climb in and out of with ease. She would climb in, read a book, climb out, run around, climb in, jump on the mattress, climb out.

Me: "Emma, do you want to sleep in this big girl bed tonight?"
Emma: "Yeah, I do!"

Fast forward to bedtime. Lauralee had been gone for several hours. I had somehow managed to feed and bathe Emma between my Guys Night Out ponderings. We went through the usual bedtime routine: jammies, books, prayer, singing and rocking. It should be noted that up to this point Emma had shown no trepidation regarding the new look of the crib. I stood up from the rocking chair to lay her down in the crib and Emma said: "Put the lid on."

It's not unusual for me to have no idea what my 2 1/2 year old is talking about, so I went ahead and laid her down on the bed.

"Daddy, put the lid on."

Still not sure what's up, but now fearing that this bed transition was not going to go well, I gave her a kiss, walked out the door, and started my stopwatch. 6 seconds. My daughter lasted 6 seconds in her big girl bed before she got out, opened up her door, and came running to me, whining "one more song, one more song." I'm not a good singer, even by William Hung standards, so I knew that something was up. I walked her back to her room, but when I picked her up to put her back in her bed, she turned into Jack Jack from The Incredibles -- just a big, writhing mass of fury. Finally I got it: she pointed to the unused crib side rail on the floor and said "Put the lid on, Daddy." She was upset about one of the side rails missing.

Some people (and some No Fear shirts) will tell you that quitting is not an option. That's a bunch of baloney. Sometimes quitting is the only thing that makes sense, and this was one of those times. I did try briefly to sit with Emma, hold her hand, etc, until she fell asleep. But it became very apparent very quickly that this was not going to happen tonight. I also felt that we would go through this rigamarole again when we moved her into her actual toddler bed. So, I thought, why not eliminate the middle man? Why fight this fight only to fight it again in a few weeks? And that, my friends, was when I quit.

I pulled out the screwdriver and hardware to begin putting the crib back together. Emma was delighted. She just ran around her room in a circle, pausing occasionally to ask "What doing, Dad?"

Here's a transcript:

9:37 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: Putting the lid on.

9:41 PM

Emma: What doing, Dad?

Me: Putting the LID on.

9:43 PM

Emma: What doing, Dad?

Me: Putting the LID ON.

9:44 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: PUTTING the LID ON.

9:45 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: PUTTING THE LID ON! GIVE ME BACK MY SCREWDRIVER!

Because it wasn't difficult enough for me to balance one side of the rail on my knee, steady it with my chin, hold an Allen wrench in one spot and screw a Phillips head into another spot at an awkward 90 degree angle. Nope, I had to have the toddler who was constantly peppering me with questions grab the screwdriver and run to the other side of the room.

After some deep breaths, the crib was finally put together, Emma was corralled and on my lap, and I was singing Shebangs...er, I mean Give Said the Little Stream. The sweat was wiped from my forehead, my blood pressure back down to normal. I laid Emma down in the crib and was just about to walk out of the room when:

Emma: "Daddy?"
Me: "Yes, sweetheart?"
Emma: "Did you put the lid on?"
Me [in a calm voice, but through clinched teeth]: "Yes."
Emma: "Cool!" [rolls over and starts to fall asleep.]

It's totally Laura's turn to put her to bed when the toddler bed gets here.