Every so often, I find myself having to have a serious and
deep conversation with Ellie. Otherwise, she's not going to learn the important
things in life that one needs to learn in order to make it in this world.
Classics such as "Don't eat that!", "Don't put that in your
mouth!", and "Stop chewing on that!" never go out of style. I
will admit that "Don't try to go down the stairs by yourself" and
"You don't really want to lick that light socket" do get a little
tiresome. Given my propensity for getting out of the house, especially now that
it's nice, Ellie has tired quickly of "You only have to be in your car
seat for a few more minutes."
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| Everyone knows you can't put the baby in the front seat... |
A couple of stories here. After picking up my free movie
tickets yesterday, I had one more important errand to do; getting my car
serviced. You see, I'm a largely incompetent person when it comes to most manly
activities. I'm not what one would call "good" at repairing and
fixing things. In fact, that's probably the exact reason why the gate to our
backyard hasn't closed properly in about three years (If you have any ideas
that trump the cinder block keeping it shut currently, let me know). My lack of
skills is also prevalent in auto maintenance. While I've changed oil in my
lifetime without issue, I'm more likely to just pay to get it done. Those words
are especially true now that I have Ellie in tow.
I was worried about dragging poor Ellie somewhere she'd have
to sit in a shop all afternoon. No one wants their baby to go through that.
Instead, I took advantage of a mailer coupon and went to the Valvoline drive-thru
service station to get the work done. Since this was the first experience in an
auto shop for Ellie, I even rolled down her window while in the service bay.
Believe it or not, it was mildly thrilling to watch Ellie's reactions to
everything around her. With every bang and squeak, her eyes darted around
wildly in an attempt to see what she was hearing. Finally, the job was
completed and the manager came to the car window to garner payment. As he did
so, he was immediately distracted, shoved his head inside the rear driver's
side window to look at Ellie, and spouted off a few baby words in her direction.
All of this before accepting my payment for services rendered.
Fast forward to today and Ellie had a little more time in
the car ahead of her. A long standing tradition for Bethany and I is to be those
friends people ask to take them to the airport. Believe it or not, we don't
mind. It's a good way to serve our friends and really doesn't require any time commitment.
This afternoon was one of those days so I loaded up Ellie around 4:15 and
headed to our friends' house to pick them up for their mission trip to Argentina.
Ellie had actually been crying the entire trip over but
immediately calmed as soon as I entered their driveway and turned off the ignition.
It probably had something to do with the fact that she was immediately getting attention from our friends Randy and Melanie, as well as their nine-month
old daughter, Alison. In fact, Ellie was extremely happy once she realized
Melanie and Alison would be sitting in the back seat with her on the way to the
airport. It warmed my heart to hear the abundance of laughter coming from my
baby girl as Melanie played with her in the back seat. Honestly, it also made
me extremely happy to know that Ellie is never going to have a shortage of
people around that love and care for her.
Of course, once we left our passengers at the airport, Ellie
immediately chimed in with screams and tears that seemed to say, "I want
out!" At least if nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to practice
saying "You only have to be in your car seat for a few more minutes" some
more. I think I'm starting to get really convincing! #DaddyWrite
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| car seat. |
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