Take Your Daughter in to Work Day

Yesterday was Take Your Daughter in to Work Day. When I first started here, in January of 2010, Jen wasn't working Fridays, so I suggested that she and Lily join me and the people in the office for lunch one day. They wound up doing so, and Lily had a really good time and she's been asking with some regularity when the next "Take Your Kid to Work Day" would be.

Well, it was April 28th for 2011, so we went in together. I've mentioned before that my drive in is a long and tedious one and Lily had similar observations. Specifically, she said that the drive is so long that I probably fall asleep on the way there. She kept asking "Are we there yet?" (It's not just for Smurfs anymore) so we started playing the "Guess Which Animal I am" game until we got there.

Once there, she fell in love with the place. Unfortunately, she didn't want to play with the other kids, most of whom were quite a bit older and all of whom were boys. Fortunately, I had prepared for this and we had plenty to do. We played stickers and watched Scooby Doo  on the laptop.

There was a tornado watch in the middle of the day and that added a bit of excitement to things.

I felt like a good parent, because Lily was was the only kid not sequestered in the boardroom they were using as a gulag for the unruly kids.

While we were walking to the breakroom, she asked me to stop, and then she reached up and put a little cow pinata that had fallen down back up. Apparently it fell down because it wasn't balanced, because it immediately did so again when she let go. Then she got the bright idea to prop it up against the other, and it stayed up.

Reverse cow-tipping

We had our lunch and most of the kids went home, as they were only here for a half day. The only one left after 1:00 was a nine-year-old kid. Lily was pretty shy around everyone else, but she warmed to this kid, because, I think, he reminded her of her favorite cousin.

During lunch they were playing games on his mom's PC and Lily said "Your mom's computer is cool. My daddy's computer only has pictures of me!"

They watched some Scooby Doo episodes together and he taught her how to make paper airplanes and she covered hers with princess stickers. They went into the boardroom and Lily drew very nice pictures for me on the dry erase board. I almost missed them and while I appreciate the sentiment, I'm glad I erased them before the room was used for a meeting with a client.

Lily's been potty trained forever, but if she's engaged in something as she was with this, she'll sometimes put off going to the bathroom until the last minute and have an accident on the way. I had to bribe her twice to use the bathroom, and she's old enough now that she feels awkward going into the men's room with me.

Lily: Come in the girl's room with me!
Me: I can't. Men aren't allowed to go in there.
Lily: It's okay if you're with a girl.

And then we passed a urinal, and she wanted to know what it was. I told it is was a special type of potty that you use only if you have to pee. So the second time we were in there, of course she wanted to use it.

I leave around five and I had her go to the bathroom at about 4:40. Like I said above, Lily will sometimes hold it in until the last minute and this time while using the potty, she held it for too long and didn't get her panties all the way down and got them a little wet. I tried to dry them off, but she insisted they made her itchy if they were wet, so when I saw that I wasn't going to get them dry, I just took them off and stuck them in my back pocket. (She was, of course, wearing a dress.)

And then Lily spent the last 20 minutes of the day playing catch with her little friend. At one point the ball bounced under a desk, and Lily got on her hands and knees to retrieve it, and I was like "NO, I'LL GET THAT ONE!"

But we managed to conclude the rest of the work day without flashing anyone. On the way out, we took the back door stairs down to my car and Lily was still excited about the place. She said "Your work is so cool!"  and I was like "Cool?" and she said, "Yeah, it means interesting or neat," as if I were unfamiliar with the word, and I was, insofar as it relates to my job.

We passed the lake around which I take my walks and Lily wanted to stop, despite the fact that I assured her that there were no dolphins, sharks or octopodes in the lake, but she forgot all about them when I reminded her about the doughnuts.

We stopped for doughnuts on the way home. I was trying to keep Lily engaged so she wouldn't fall asleep right before bedtime, but I took a one minute phone call from Jen, and in that minute, Lily conked out completely.

It was windy when we got home, and Lily was still bare-bottomed, and she did a Marilyn Monroe when I was picking her up out of the car seat.

All things considered, an absolutely great day. Lily can't wait until next year.