The boys and I seem to have survived the first day of Lois's absence. Church services went about how you'd expect an LDS church service to go on Father's Day, plus the mothers of the ward provided an assortment of pies and other desserts for the fathers. During "pie time" I got to talking with my across-the-street neighbor, Mr. Turkeypants (names have been changed). When he learned that I was wifeless for a few days, he invited us to his house for dinner so that I wouldn't have to cook my own Father's Day meal. The Turkeypantses are one of our favorite families, so I gladly accepted the kind offer.
Church ended at noon, so after lunch the boys and I had to figure out how to occupy ourselves until our 6:00 appointment across the street. Luckily, Lois discovered an amazing concept known as "quiet time" back when Buzz first stopped taking afternoon naps. Every afternoon Buzz is allowed to spend quiet time doing pretty much anything he wants, as long as it can be done from the confines of his bedroom, and as long as it is quiet. Pure genius. Buzz is a bookworm, so he actually enjoys quiet time.
Rocky still takes naps, and as I was putting him down he asked (again) where Mom was. "She's in San Francisco with Yaya and your aunts," I reminded him. "Is Mom coming back?" he asked in all seriousness. "Oh yes, she's only going to be gone for a few days and we're going to have lots of fun," I assured him. This seemed to be satisfactory.
I let Buzz out of quiet time early on good behavior and while Rocky continued napping we made videos of Buzz doing some dramatic poetry readings, just to mix things up a bit. Rocky joined in the fun shortly after. There's no telling what crazy trouble we'll get into next!
Finally the time came when we could go across the street to the Turkeypantses. They have three girls aged 8, 6, and 4, and a baby boy around seven months. These girls would rather play dinosaurs and pirates than Barbies, so they get along with my boys just fine (the worst insult according to my boys -- and often inflicted by them -- is, "You play with Barbies!"). As we walked in the door we were welcomed by the extremely pleasant aroma of roasting meat. The roast was one of the best I've ever tasted.
During the meal, the four-year-old Turkeypants said to her dad, "Daddy, will you help me cut my goat?" I thought maybe I heard wrong, but I looked to Mrs. Turkeypants and asked, "Is this really goat?" She laughed kind of sheepishly (sorry, baaad joke), but said that, yes, they had received quite a bit of goat and rabbit meat from Mr. Turkeypants's sister. "Well, it's really good," was all I could think to say (and it really was). I then had the following exchange with Rocky:
Rocky: Daddy, am I eating goat?
Me: Yes, you are eating goat.
Rocky: Are you eating goat?
Me: Yes.
Rocky: Is Buzz eating goat?
Me: Yes.
Rocky: Is the baby eating goat?
Me: No, I think he's eating cereal.
Rocky: Oh.
Rocky then continued to eat his goat without any complaint.
I had never had goat before, but I'm really not very squeamish when it comes to things like that. I even had seconds. But I assure you that Lois is very, very relieved that she was not there.
The best thing about having dinner with the Turkeypantses? I didn't have to do any dishes.
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