Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik

I love mornings like this. The sun is out and it's already warm enough to open the windows. The kids are still asleep and after checking my email and with a hot cup of coffee I get to write for a bit.

The night before last I attended a school meeting to discuss school related things. Nikki's school is a co-op which means a couple things. First, tuition is cheap. They really make money off the fundraisers throughout the year. So you go around and sell stuff to your family and coworkers. I don't do this mind you, thats been my wife's job. If I had to do it I would just write a check and be done with it. So we had to discuss up coming fundraisers. The other interesting thing is that once a month each parent is the teachers helper for a day. The cool thing about this is that you get to watch your child interact with his or her friends and their teacher. Although this isn't really the case with my daughter. See when I co-op my daughter just climbs on me all day. She is very protective of me and HATES it if I play with other kids. Last year I made the mistake of playing with one of the boys in the class. He was really shy and withdrawn and I kinda identified with him. Nikki had a meltdown. She couldn't believe that I would play with another child. As a result she never played with that boy and made it known to me that I was not allowed to play with any other children. She only went to his birthday party because it was at Chuck E. Cheeses.

But I digress.....

Now, the big thing for all us stay at home parents is that after this 45 minute meeting, a few of us go out drinking. It's a big deal for us. The spouses stay home and take care of the children while we go out and drink. It's all we talk about the week before. Who's going to be able to go, what bar should we go to etc. My buddy and social director Stacey had been sick all week and she wasn't able to make it. Her daughter Rose is one of Nikki's best friends. Now I need Stacey to be there. See, even though a few of the moms either know me or know of me because remember, I'm somewhat of an oddity still being one of if not the only full time stay at home dad. There is still even in this small social circle of friends a little uneasiness about having a man in the group. Luckily for me Debbie came out.

Now Debbie is just da bomb. Her son Ashton and Nikki were in the same class last year and would have been in the same class this year except Nikkis birthday is past the cut off date and she had to repeat this year. No big, Rose did too so Nikki was cool with it. You take the best parts of a woman and the best parts of a man, throw them in a cute little body and you have Debbie. As an example, she is a huge Caps fan and is counting the hours till this weekend to see them play. HOWEVER, her main concern that night is that she is able to get her fingernails painted in Caps colors in time for the game. That's Deb.

So we get to the bar, this little hole in the wall german place that has like 15 million different types of beers, and of the 12 women there I know two, Cindy and Debbie. I'm starting to feel the uneasy feeling of being a freak show exhibit again when Debbie starts explaining to the woman how I'm a stay at home dad, and how great I am with the kids, and how I'm getting screwed by my soon to be ex. And all of a sudden I'm one of the girls. And the drinking began. 

Now I should say that I haven't really drank since Nikki was born. I never had a problem going out and getting nice and toasty before she came into my life, as a matter of fact, I was this close at turning drinking into a serious art form. But I just never felt comfortable doing it after Nikki and haven't really been 'drunk' in 4 and a half years. But the streak ended that night. 3 Long Island Iced Teas in about 1 1/2 hours was a nice pace for me. I was having a blast. It was around then that the group started breaking up and the restaurant was closing down. But it was only 9:30. The night was still young.

Debbie, myself, and another one of the moms went to a bar just down the road. We had a couple more drinks and a little food to soak it all up. I felt like a total sports newbie as the two ladies talked about the Caps but it like I said, one of the best nights I've had this year.

Luckily the next morning did not bring the hangover I was expecting and daddy was back to being daddy.