Weekly Review 84

This week was, again, filled with precious little moments. I suppose that’s always the case when you have a little one. Every day, even every hour, they change. They grow, they learn new words and/or actions, and it surprises you every single time. Throughout the week, it was business as usual around here. However, the weekend was a nice change of pace for all of us.

Hello, readers! Old or new, I welcome you to week 84 of my Weekly Review. I’m so happy you’re here and I appreciate you taking the time to read my writings. 

 It started on Monday (as all Weekly Reviews do). Mr. O slept in again, which was a peaceful way to start the day. I enjoy my son being awake, obviously, but sometimes the peace and quiet on a spring morning hits the spot. I made myself a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and then headed back upstairs to hang out with Lea while she was getting ready for the day. Suddenly, I hear a door across the hall creaking. It sounded as if it was slowly being opened. Slow enough to be considered “sneaky”. From the edge of my bed, I turned my head toward the hall. I look across and see one beautiful, big, blue eye staring at me through the cracked door. Mr. O was up! We made eye contact and then quickly swung his door open, yelled, “DADA!!!!”, and came sprinting across the hall to wrap his long, little arms around me to give me a hug. He was so excited to be awake. 

Before I knew it, I had to start working. Fortunately, the day went by fast, and I was able to shut my work-brain off and hang out with my family. As Mr. O and I were playing in the living room, I noticed a woman parked on the curb in front of our house. “Why is that lady sitting in her car eating ice cream?” I asked Lea, in case it was one of her friends from her mom’s group coming to drop something off. Lea didn’t know her and assumed it was a mom in the neighborhood trying to enjoy a sweet treat alone before going home. That made me think, does Lea do that? Does she sit in her car somewhere in the neighborhood and eat ice cream alone? Without me and Mr. O?! That wouldn’t be very nice, but now I am suspicious. 

I jokingly told Mr. O, who was standing in the window watching this woman, to wave. He did, and she kindly smiled and waved back. Then she got out of her car and came knocking on our front door. Turns out, she was working and just taking a break. She is volunteering for someone running for office around here and asked if I could complete a quick survey. Lea answered the door and told her I wasn’t available. I’m glad she did that because my brain was so fried after work, the last thing I wanted to do was a survey. Although, if she were to come back, and I had the time, I probably would do it to help her out. 

After the quick exchange, Mr. O and I started playing with his toys, while Lea made dinner. I can’t remember what she made, but it was another new recipe. We eat good around here! When dinner was finished, we watched an episode of Smallville and then the most recent episode of American Idol. It was a good start to the week.

At 3 AM on Tuesday, Mr. O woke up afraid of a “monster” in his room. He was so loud he woke both of us up. Lea went and slept in his room the rest of the night. He woke up very happy and ready to start his day! Lea packed up his things, and they were off to daycare. He was excited. More excited than he has been in recent weeks, so that’s good. After they left, I laid on the couch and scrolled on my phone for a few minutes until it was finally time to turn on my computer and start working. It’s so quiet in our house when my little family is gone for the day. I miss them but enjoy being able to connect to my Bluetooth speaker and play my music as loud as I want, Lol. 

On my lunch break, I went for a walk outside. I thought I didn’t need a sweatshirt, but the wind was piercing cold. “At least the sun is out”, I said to myself as I tried to enjoy my 20 minute walk. I had brief moments of peace and pleasure when the wind stopped for a few seconds, but then it would hit me again and remind me how dumb I was not to bring a sweatshirt or a light jacket at least. When I came back home, I continued my day until it was 5 PM. I immediately shut off my laptop and opened the garage door. I stood right at the edge of the garage, watching and listening to the light spring thunder storm that was passing through. It had a beautiful breeze with it. A few minutes later, Lea and Mr. O came home, and everything in the world was just right. 

In the evening, Lea made biscuits and gravy for dinner. It was good, as always. We finished our episode of American Idol and then Lea took Mr. O upstairs to bathe and go to bed. I turned on my Playstation and greeted my friends, as we continued our Baldur’s Gate 3 quest. Hours later, when we picked somewhere to stop for the night, we said our goodbyes. I wasn’t tired, though, so I turned the TV on and watched a couple episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens on TV Land. I’ve seen my parents watch episodes here and there growing up, but I never actually watched these shows. They weren’t bad. I laughed a few times, Lol. 

Around 11 PM or midnight, Mr. O woke up from a bad dream. I went into his room and slept with him the rest of the night. It was so uncomfortable! I was told I had to lay on the inside of the bed (It’s up against the wall), which meant I had to lay on top of all of his stuffed animals. On top of that, he slept sideways, digging his little piggies into my belly most of the night. When he wasn’t doing that, he was constantly moving. It was not a good time, but he is super cute, and he ended up sleeping really well, so that’s all that matters. 

When it was finally Wednesday morning, I snuck out of Mr. O’s room to get ready for work. He ended up sleeping in, thankfully. It was another beautiful day here in the region! We had someone from Summers Plumbing Heating & Cooling come out to the house because our AC wasn’t working correctly. Thankfully, he found the issue and was able to fix it. Summers is a great company, if you’re in the region/northwest Indiana you should definitely check them out! They are not paying me for an ad, I genuinely enjoy their service and have used them multiple times over the last four years in our house. 

After work, Mr. O played outside in the front yard (after coming home from the park with Lea) and blew bubbles. Then, he and I drove over to my Yiayia’s house to spend some time with her. My mom came too and brought dinner from Tzatziki. She brought a huge piece of pastichio for Mr. O, along with some chicken kabobs and rice. It was a nice time. Mr. O and I stayed for an hour or two, then it was time to go to bed. We went home, played Rocket League on the PlayStation for a few minutes, then laid down. 

I woke up Thursday with the intention of taking Mr. O to daycare. However, since I have the best wife ever, I didn’t have to. Lea said she will take him since she was up early, so after I helped get him ready for the day, I laid back down and relaxed for a bit. Then I went into the basement for a quick workout before cleaning myself up and starting the workday. In the evening, I cut the grass while Mr. O and Lea played outside. When I was finished, I re-heated the food from Wednesday night, and spent some time with my family before Mr. O went to sleep. 

On Friday morning, Mr. O and I woke up at the exact same time. He walked over and laid down in my bed, eating his breakfast, while I trimmed my beard and got ready for the day. When I started work, Lea and Mr. O went to Target for a few things. To my surprise, when they came home Mr. O came running into my office with a bag. I figured he got a new toy or something, but it was actually for me! Lea and Mr. O bought me a vinyl record of Noah Kahan’s new record, The Great Divide. 

This album literally just released and went on sale at midnight, and Lea didn’t even know, Lol. I’m glad she picked it up when she did! I can’t wait to spin it on the record player. In the evening, Lea made steak and potato bites for dinner. It was excellent. Then I played with Mr. O for a bit before he and Lea went to Dairy Queen on an “ice cream date”, as they call it. When they left I showered again and got ready for a night out with my friends Toby and Jak. Since I don’t drink much anymore, they drove to my house and I drove us all to the Crown Point Square. When we arrived, the first place we went to was called Public Bar & Rec. It was super cool! They had a bar, restaurant and arcade inside. We picked a table, then quickly went to play on the “pop-a-shot” basketball game. There were two, tiny and uneven hoops, along with the small basketballs in the corner of the bar. We each put in a dollar and faced off. In the first round it was me versus Toby. We tied the first game 20-20. We each put in another dollar and I ended up winning 33-17. I’d like to thank Mr. O’s Little Tikes basketball hoop for giving me the skills that lead me to victory. Since Toby lost, he bought us all an appetizer. We ordered fried pickle spears. They were great, but super hot. We sat there, eating, talking, and watching the NBA playoffs. Then, it was time for Jak to face off against Toby in basketball. It was close, but Toby pulled out his first victory of the night with a score of 32-28. Then, Toby and I faced off once more in the championship round. The bracket didn’t make sense, but it did to us because we just made it up. 

Sadly, I was defeated by one point. Toby had scored with 1 second left, as my shot had taken an unfortunate bounce to the right, and he won 24-23. We spent the rest of the night talking about life and reminiscing about things, as well as watching the NBA playoffs and having a few drinks (except for me. I was the driver). We finished out night at Tavern on Main and then I came home around 11:30PM. That’s late for me! I didn’t fall asleep until midnight, and then Mr. O was up again with nightmares around 3 AM. On Saturday, my alarm went off at 5:30 AM, which gave me an estimated total of 5.5 hours of sleep, but it was probably less. My math is definitely off, Lol. 

Mr. O and I ate breakfast in my bed, while Lea got herself ready and finished packing. An hour or so later, we packed the car and were off to Indianapolis! We were going to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. We spent the 2.5 hour car ride talking about our family’s future, while Mr. O played with his new trucks. When we arrived, Mr. O was so excited! He was so pumped to see the dinosaur exhibits and the Paw Patrol exhibit. Lea’s brother came with his family, and Lea’s parents came as well. It was a really fun day. 

We spent most of our time indoors checking out the cool exhibits, but then we went outside and played football, hockey, basketball, and Mr. O climbed a really big treehouse with his cousins! At the football field, I also proved I could be an NFL kicker…If I had accuracy, Lol. I had the height and power, but my kick went a little to the left of the field goal posts. I keep telling Lea, “If I had made that kick our lives could have been changed forever.” She rolled her eyes as I continued, “I would have posted the video on Tiktok, the NFL would have seen it and commented, Hey, come try out for the Bears, and I would have made it.” Sometimes, life really is that simple.  I’m, like, 99% joking. There’s 1% of me that still believes all of this could have happened! Lol. Here’s the video below. Sorry if it is poor quality, I’ve never uploaded a video on here before:

In the evening, we went to the hotel and the kids swam in the pool. Then we attempted to play Uno, but Mr. O and our little niece were not having it. They wanted all the cards and were moving all around the bed we were playing on, so we gave up, Lol. It was a nice evening, and then we all went to bed. On Sunday, we packed up and drove home. We spent the day relaxing. Currently, Mr. O is knocked out in his room, exhausted from Saturday’s events. Lea is at the store, and I am writing this Weekly Review for us to look back on in the future, and hopefully for my readers to enjoy now!

A Moment I’m Still Thinking About

Honestly, I’m still thinking about my missed field goal. Even though none of the events I described above would have happened, I still wish I could have made it. I was watching the video on the way home today and noticed I kicked it with the inside of my foot, and maybe if I had used the top of my foot it would have gone straight and in between the goal posts. Oh well, maybe next time, NFL. 

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Peter