Mr. mom, day 1

Step one: Lose track of the time and hit the snooze button on the "Wake up Diana alarm." I was up and in the kitchen, just not paying attention. So I got her up 10 minutes late so she missed the bus.

I had Diana wake Pete up so we could give her a ride to school, but on the plus side...

Peter woke up with a dry diaper! Such a big boy! Still not something he volunteers to do though, even for candy.

As Peter and I returned home, Pete decided that he wanted to go to the Oakdale Mall in Johnson City. I said we couldn't because we had to go home and let Duncan go pee pee on the potty outside like a big boy.

Pete said "he does Duncan bombs outside too."
D: "that is true"
P: "I want to get my little shovel  and scoop them all up. I an going to get a bag and scoop them all up and put them in the bag and throw them away!"
D: "You are too little, you need to wait a few years"
P: "But daddy, I am good at it."

I used the bread maker make pizza dough. I started it in the morning and set it do be done at 5 PM. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I got home to a yeasty soup. a little over 2 cups of flour later, it came out perfect! Peter helped me spread the dough and he helped Diana spread the cheese. We made 2 pizzas. We had enough open store sauce for one and are out of the homemade sauce, so we just did cheese on the other. Diana wanted to try bacon on it and she's helped out a lot the last few weeks so I got some. it worked very well.

Lost-one blue balloon

   Please contact me if you find a light blue helium balloon. It took off from home in chenango forks and was heading towards the school at about 5:30 pm 2/1.

   Pete and I did a little shopping at Price Chopper. A nice lady in the flower / balloon section offered Pete a balloon and even put a plastic weight on it. We finished shopping and went back to the van without any problems. We got home and I set the weight on the ground while I unbuckled Pete. He said where's my balloon? I turned to see it 15 feet off the ground and making good time. The weight still attached!* It hung up briefly on the phone wires, and then headed south. Bad daddy (my words, not his).

Peter was very sad. After taking him in to snuggle with mama, I helped the girls take the groceries in. Pete was still sad so I got a balloon out of birthday supplies and Pete was happy. Until he popped it 5 minutes later. Good thing I brought a couple.

This morning Pete told me the neighbor would bring his balloon back. I explained that it went over his house and didn't stop.

A little while later he told Tera and I that the falcons would bring his balloon back. We explained that falcons don't do balloon returns. He kind of stuck to that, but eventually decided the black birds (crows) would help.

On the way to daycare he decided that the balloon blew all the way to daycare and got sucked in through the brown pipe and Stacy and Kelly (his teachers from last semester) would have it. I tried to explain that the wind was blowing the wrong way, but he was sure.

We got there and outside his old room was a tan rain gutter, but no blue balloon. Pete forgot about the balloon once he got inside.

* we go up about 350 feet in elevation between the store and home. In theory a helium balloon WOULD be slightly more buoyant at the higher elevation, I have just never been in a situation where it was a noticeable effect. Bad daddy :-(