Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Solo Daddy, Day Two

Just like in those old suspense movies, today was quiet. Almost ... too quiet.

This was the smoothest school registration I've been to in six years. The first one, when C was just entering kindergarten, began with me standing in line at the Fairgrounds at three in the morning sometime in February to secure him a spot at Downtown Elementary.

And each subsequent year, I've had to produce something to prove that my kids exist; a birth certificate, social security card, DNA sample, retina scan. Something. Every year, even after C had been there for a few years.

Except this year. Kristy printed out the necessary forms and filled them out ahead of time and I took them into school and dropped them off. The end. It was as simple and tidy as it should have been every year.

So after this short jaunt, I decided to take The Quartet for a picnic. It was 98 degrees outside, why not?

First, thought, I drove past the auto inspection station to see about getting the Volvo inspected to renew the registration. The line was too long, again. I've done this every day since early last week and that line is always too long. I just don't have the patience to sit in my car waiting for the government to do its work.

What I do have the patience for, apparently, is sitting in my car at the McDonald's drive-thru waiting for a high school kid to assemble four Happy Meals.

We went to Overton Park, at a picnic table near the Doughboy, where we ate our lunch and fed French fries to a few squirrels. The kids loved that part.

It was a good day. A good way to spend one of the last days of summer vacation. Tomorrow, Kristy is taking the kids to work with her, so I get the day off. I'm almost sorry about that.