Mr. Mom

Rachel is on vacation.

Rachel hasn't had a real vacation since Matthew was born. I'm convinced that when you're full time Mom it's not a real vacation if the kids are with you. So I've been trying to get Rachel to take a vacation for a while now. I had one myself with my brother Grant a few years ago -- we drove up to San Fransisco for the World Cyber Games. (This year the WCG was in Seattle, and for a while it looked like I was going to be able to combine a family trip with some hardcore nerd action but it didn't work out. Yes, I'm a geek.)

Rachel never did find a good vacation time that would work for her and one of her friends. It's true that a shared vacation is more fun than a vacation alone.

But now Rachel's sister is getting married in January. I suggested that Rachel fly up and spend some time with her, see Seattle, maybe Victoria, or even fly somewhere else entirely with Andrea. Sort of a last hurrah before Andrea's life gets more complicated too. Fortunately, Andrea had some rare time off from work so it looked like it might happen. But for one reason and another they decided it made more sense for Andrea to fly here instead, leaving me with the assignment of keeping the kids out of the way during their vacation.

My job started after work yesterday. Evenings with the kids are my specialty, thanks to Rachel's orchestra practice, so this was cake. We went to the library, which was closed (6:00 on Saturday -- doh), and headed for Arctic Circle. On the way, Matthew claimed to see a "new slide," i.e., fast food with play area. I humored him because hey, killing time was the name of the game. And it turned out that he was right -- Del Taco had a small play area that I never noticed. It's not going to see much time on my Slide Rotation calendar, though; the kids enjoyed playing, but didn't eat any of the food. Even the quesadilla. They scarf Rachel's quesadillas.

Today we paid a visit to Uncle Ellis, followed by a trip to the library (open, this time), and lunch at Carl's Jr. Matthew likes Carl's Jr because he can refill his glass at the fountains All By Himself. Right now the kids are napping; this afternoon we will visit The Bouncy Place (Google thinks its real name is Some Dude's Playground. I think Google is smoking something) and hopefully that will get us close to dinner time. If Rachel and Andrea are back from The Nutcracker, I'll take them out to eat, otherwise Daddy's cooking dinner.

Kid play areas are a little on the boring side for dads. But thanks to my Christmas wish list I'm well supplied with reading material. Last night was All Corvettes are Red. (The title comes from a quote by a GM manager, which concludes "The rest are mistakes.") Today I started The Paypal Wars. Paypal turns out to be one of the most interesting books on entrepreneurship I've read in a while. Corvettes is less interesting to anyone who isn't already a fan of the titular car. Unless you have a sick fascination with dysfunctional bureaucracies; there's lots of that involved, too.