My Buddy and Me

So I have decided to hijack my wife's blog. Why may you ask? Well Jodee and Madison took a four day jaunt to San Francisco this past weekend leaving Beckham and I to fend for ourselves back here at home. So someone has to chronicle the adventures of our bachelor weekend. And as much as Beckham loves to jam on the keyboard, my writing will hopefully be a little more coherent than his.

The weekend reminded me of a commercial I remember seeing as a kid. It was for this type of cabbage-patch-like doll called My Buddy. I can still remember the jingle now: "My Buddy...My Buddy...My Buddy and Me!" The purpose of the ad was to show that you could really take the doll everywhere with you. Beckham has always been my buddy. He follows me around the house and helps me with errands like taking out the trash. This weekend especially was a chance for me to spend quality time with him and (hopefully) purge him of his tutu wearing, doll playing days. :)

We dropped the girls off at the airport on Thursday night and swung by Safeway on the way home. Had to stock up on cold cereal to make sure we would make it through the weekend. Our friends the Holmans graciously watched Bex on Friday and Monday while I was at work, which was a big help.

I had a real fun weekend with the little guy, but I often found myself doing weird things, almost as if I was trying to be the mother and the father at the same time. It started off on Friday morning, when he slept in until 9:30 AM. That is about two hours later than normal, which threw off my schedule and then he totally peed through his diaper, which required a bath, so I was seriously rushing to get out the door by the time I got him fed. As I was loading him into the car in the driveway I was met by 30 (count 'em 30!) mommies with strollers power walking up the hill on our street in some sort of ritualistic mommy/baby fitness group. This made me feel sheepish about going to drop my boy off at a sitter's; should I have just fallen in line with the others? Banishing this crazy thought from my mind I headed off to work. The inner struggle really picked up when I got back that evening. I ordered us pizza delivery for dinner (guy thing), but then inexplicably got the urge to make brownies to deliver to some of our neighbor friends (girl thing). Of course I lost track of time and we found ourselves walking back to the house at 11:00pm (guy). Then we stayed up late watching TV together (guy), but alas it was the season finale of Grey's Anatomy (girl).

To make up for the brownies and Grey's Anatomy the night before, we set out to prove how manly we were by catching a Saturday morning showing of Iron Man at the local movie theater. Beckham did really well at the movie and especially liked the large popcorn and rootbeer combo. After a nice long afternoon nap, we went by Home Depot to check out yard supplies and then had a nice walk around the neighborhood to close out the day. It was good to be out of the house as the weather really warmed up this weekend and I found out that we in fact do not have air conditioning in our home. I guess it is not all that uncommon in the area since it isn't required very often, but it sure would have been nice to have - our house peaked at 81 degrees indoors that day.

On Sunday we went to church and then to dinner with friends from our ward who took pity on me (or was it Beckham) and invited us over. After dinner we headed to another church building in Issaquah where BYU Head Football Coach Bronco Mendenhall was giving a fireside. Other speakers included Matt Berry who played for BYU a few years ago and is from this area as well as Lance Reynolds who is the assistant head coach and served a mission to Seattle. It was fun to hear them speak and made me excited for football season.

Monday was fairly tame, we were just excited to be able to go pick up our girls that night. The house hadn't been the same without them, so it was good to have them come home. All in all it was a great weekend and a fun chance to be able to spend quality time together as father and son. Beckham probably won't remember it later in life, but I know I will. Thanks Buddy!