Friday, July 26 2019

Dear Journal,

"Bring Your Kid to Work Day" was a success! We had a pretty slow morning. I let Rodney sleep in until about 9:30. I made french toast from a stale sourdough baguette. After breakfast, we packed his backpack with a few toys - we went with a lego skid steer and a few airplanes and other trucks. We snapped a few pictures on the porch, then walked over to the bus stop. We left a little early, so we spend about fifteen minutes just hanging out at the bus stop. Rodney met a dog (he politely asked if he could pet it), and he also picked up a cigarette butt off the ground and tried to give it to me.

Rodney was fascinated with the bus. He exuberantly greeted the bus driver and told him to have a good day, then we made our way to the back. Rodney quietly studied each person sitting on the bus, and even chatted a few people up. He had such a good time, I'm sure if we just rode the bus to the square and back, then walked home, he would have still had an amazing day. But as all morning commuters now, the magical morning bus ride is only the beginning, and soon we were walking up King street to get to my office. Rodney quickly got tired of walking in the hot sun. We very slowly and pensively made our way around the square, into my building, and took the elevator up to my floor.

The eighth floor was pretty quiet. All the kids were down on the seventh floor doing various activities. Rodney was a little tired from the walk, so I decided to reserve a conference room for an hour. I short the door, and Rodney emptied his back pack onto the table and quietly played in his chair. I totally understand, sometimes when I first get to work in the morning, I can't actually focus until I too spend an hour playing with trucks and legos at my desk - it's nothing to be ashamed of. I connected my laptop to the monitor and played some good ol' Blippi, in the interest of background noise.

While we quietly worked in the conference room, a few of my coworkers peeked there head in to say hello. Rodney seemed to enjoy the camaraderie and acted he was life long friends with Gavin and Nate, even though he may have only met them once.

I caught up on messages, and even fixed a bug in something I was working on, but before I knew it, it was noon. Our time slot on the conference room was nearing an end, but we felt like walking around anyway. We dropped of our things at my desk, then finally went downstairs to check out what they had for the kids. They were set up in the town hall room, and they had a big crayon wall, tee-pees, tunnels, and some people wearing safari outfits walking around with animals. Rodney got to pet a bunny, but he had serious reservations about it, so I didn't even bother trying to get him to pet the hedgehog or the tarantula.

We grabbed some lunch, then headed upstairs to change his diaper. Rodney was really talkative in the bathroom, and even though he was lying on his back with his naked legs up in the air, he still greeted every person that walked into the bathroom behind us, saying "HOW ARE YOU?" and "Excuse me! \<gibberish…> DIAPER CHANGE." We walked around the kids area a bit longer, and before we knew it, it was 1pm and mom was on her way to pick him up from his first day of work. We said goodbyes, then very slowly made our way around the square. Mom wanted us to pick her up some lunch, so we waited outside of a Food cart. On the way to the car, we saw "uncle bobbert". Rodney gave him a high five, and was spell bound by Rob's story about his cool new blue truck. Marissa picked Rodney up around 1:15. He talked about his busy work day all the way home.

There were a lot of kids there yesterday. One thing I really enjoyed seeing was kids actually hanging out with the parents while they worked. Planned events for the kids are cool, but I think some of "bring your kid to work day" should be spent watching your parents work to get the real essence of the holiday. Chatting around the water cooler, small talk before meetings, snacks in the break room - it's fun sharing that with your kids, and I think kids enjoy the glimpse into daily office life.