Monday, March 14, 2005

47.6 Units of Bachelor

I've been baching it with Eli 3.7 for nearly two days now. Gloria's grandmother, who is a happy, kind woman, has emphysema and is gravely ill with a viral infection. Gloria dearly loves her grandmother--between them, they constitute all the spark in their family--and they have a special relationship. She drove to Shreveport because she wanted to be able to see her one last time. Her grandmother is ninety and has a wonderful attitude about everything, even death, and I only hope that if I'm in that situation one day I will handle it with the grace she does.

Eli 3.7 doesn't know about any of this. I'm not sure we could explain any of it in a way that didn't frighten him, so we decided that Gloria would go to Shreveport and I would stay here with Eli. That means Don Knotts has been on duty full-time since Sunday morning.

Here's the scoreboard.
911 calls: 0.
Wendy's meals: 1.
Action figures purchased: 2.
Scooby-Doo episodes viewed: 6.

I knew Eli was missing his mom, so I tried to jam yesterday with plenty of activities, including a trip to a beautiful neighborhood park that is his favorite. The entire park trip consisted of him setting up his Rescue Heroes action figures (Billy Blaze and Jack Hammer, 8" high) at the bottom of a very tall slide (over ten feet). Then he would climb the stairs to the top of the slide, and on his way down, he would yell "INCOMING!" and hit one action figure with each foot. It was the Eli 3.7 community theater interpretation of a scene from the Rescue Heroes movie, and he did it about twenty times in a row. He enjoyed it so much that I laughed every time.

When we started to leave the park, I noticed that everything around us was green. It was a beautiful spring day, with just a hint of coolness in the air, and the sun was sinking near the horizon. Eli 3.7 took my hand and said "Thank you, Daddy. It's been a great day."

I think that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

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