Land Of Dads

The weather this winter has been especially brutal. He mercury hasn’t climbed over 20 in, what seems like Elijah’s entire life. And he’s getting sick and tired of hanging out in the smallest living room on the planet. His only escape from boredom is getting into mischief. This morning it meant crawling all over our coffee tables, which resulted in him falling and bashing his head. It left a nifty DCFS style dent in his temple.

Diana declared that we had to get out of the house before we all went nuts. Grover practically held the door open. He needed some time without a baby using his tail as a swing set.

We decided to visit the Evanston Public Library. I was under the impression that the only purpose for the library was for homeless people to go BM (joke stolen from “Family Guy” –ed). But when we arrived, I suddenly understood where our $50,000 in property taxes go. The place was awesome. The nerds alone were enough to keep Eli and I occupied. But The EPL had a whole floor dedicated to kids. There was a puppet show, a giant bear, blocks and tons of books. I don’t know how many there were. At least seven.

In the middle of the place was the baby cell. It was a padded area filled with toys and books and all kinds of germy things to occupy the under one set. Eli loved it. While Di went off in search of baby nutrition books, we sat in the padded room and neither one of us dented our heads.

As we touched things covered with pink eye and flu, I started to notice the clientele: All dads. I was in the land of “Give Mommy Five Minutes To Herself.” I can’t think of a better to place to kill a little time with the kids. Besides Off Track Betting.

Pretty soon a guy crawled into the baby cell with his 1 year old, Spencer. I asked him what he was in for. “Wife at Yoga.” He asked me and I said my wife was in fact at the library. He looked at me as if I broke the rule of The Land of Dad. I felt instantly guilty. I assured him that next time I’d come alone.