Andrew, my Valentine

My Valentine's Day was not spent with the girl I married but with my second born child, Andrew. I had an extra day off to recover from my mini-vacation this past weekend (which will be the next post) so I had the whole day to spend with my family... or so I thought. Lynn (who was taking baby Ty) already had plans with her sister and mom for that afternoon and Jacob was at school so that meant it was going to be Andrew and Papa Day.

I asked Andrew, "What do you want to do today? Anything you want." He said that he wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese and Target. Sure. I actually prefer going during a random weekday afternoon since most of the kids are at school and he literally gets the whole place to himself. After 30 minutes or so of playing games, we cashed our tickets for a blue rubber lizard and were off to our next destination. While walking to the car in the parking lot, Andrew wanted to chase down a bird and scare it. At that moment, it gave me the idea of taking him to a big park where he could chase birds to his heart's content. (I knew he liked doing this ever since his visit of the UT campus, home to a million pigeons.)

We went to Hermann Park and I let him run wild. I brought some old crackers to feed the ducks (not pigeons) and he really enjoyed that. He played at the children's playground which he had all to himself. Again, it was really nice to avoid the crowd. Then we ate sandwiches by the faux-lake and he said it was our picnic. I didn't even know he knew what a picnic was. It was great weather, clear skies with temperature in the upper 60s. He kept saying multiple times, "It's Andrew and Papa Day!" I love my one-on-one time with my boys. It rarely happens but when it does, I cherish every minute of it.

Doing what he does best.

Andrew's nemeses.

Feeding the ducks. (It bit him here.)

"Hi Yah!"

"Cheeeese."

More running... to the playground.

That evening I did get to spend time with my family. Lynn had surprised me with a gift (totally unexpected since we never get each other gifts on this day). It was Fuji's version of the instant picture camera, since Polaroid no longer makes those cameras. This was a good end to my six days off of work. Tomorrow it's back to the grind and I get a new pharmacy student. From what my friend told me, who had him on a previous rotation (pharmacy is a small world), he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. More like he's not sharp at all, just plain dumb. We'll see how long it takes before I yell at him but I'm currently well rested so the over and under is two weeks.