Father's Daze

I’ve lost my office assistant this week. Then again, I’m not sure how much assistance he really gave me last week.

Of course, what can you expect from someone who just turned 2?

We’re taking care of Aiden for several weeks while his mother puts in some time with her Army Reserve unit in lieu of going to annual training in California with the unit next month — Alex gets to do that.

Actually, we get Aiden Sunday night through Thursday night, then he goes back to his parents for the weekend.

It means we’ve had to do a few things we haven’t in a long, long time — such as buying diapers.

There were diapers in his diaper bag, but he managed to go through all of those and we were forced to replenish the supply — it was either that or spend a lot of time doing laundry and cleaning up a lot of unwanted messes.

His parents did make sure to pack some sleepers along with the rest of his clothes this time.

The last few times he came to stay with us, they didn’t pack any sleepers, so grandma and grandpa bought some for him — Green Bay Packers sleepers each time.

His mother, Julia — a Chicago Bears fan, but don’t hold that against her — finally got the message it seems and made sure he had sleepers with him.

It wasn’t any of the Packers sleepers we bought him, though — it’s quite possible she either burned them or threw them out in the garbage when Alex wasn’t home.

Last week, Terry and I were both working during the first part of the day, so I got to play bring your grandson to work week here at the office, as it’s a slight bit more kid-friendly than the sports club snack bar where Terry works.

He wasn’t stuck at the office the whole day, as Terry got off work a little after noon each day and could take him home in the afternoon.

But it meant he spent the mornings with his grandfather. I have a few toys at my desk for just such occasions, and I made sure to bring some of his favorite toys from home to help keep him entertained.

Fortunately, Aiden’s favorite toys at this point are toy cars, so we found an old lunchbox we could pack a good selection of them in to bring with him.

It just made me glad he’s not into giant building blocks at this point — those I’d have to bring in the truck, and I can’t his car seat in there.

The cars and the other toys kept him amused most of the time, but occasionally I would have to leave my desk to go do some work elsewhere — lay out pages, work on pictures and such — and Aiden was forced to tag along.

He brought a few of his cars along, but the temptation to wander around, see who else was in the building and find out what he could discover proved too great to resist.

Luckily for him, Aiden can be a charming little fellow when he wants to be — or when it’s worth his while — and he soon made some new friends all over the building.

Many of them have children of their own of various ages and Aiden soon discovered what neat things they had at the office, either for when their children come to the office or still left there from the days when their children came to the office.

He found one of our sales representatives who had a bottle of bubble soap and wand in her desk, and another who had crayons.

Needless to say, Aiden day care soon became a company-wide affair.

This week, Terry is off work after having eye surgery last week, so she and Aiden are spending their days together while I’m managing to actually get some work done here at the office.

There are a lot of disappointed Aiden fans here, I have to admit, but the flip side of that is that productivity is up throughout the whole building this week with nobody around to chase soap bubbles.