Boogie Nights

So I'm sitting in the gym at the rec centre. I have on a pair of lovely yellow latex gloves (too small). In front of me is a large bin, filled with hot water, dish soap and bleach.

To my left is a much larger bin, filled with over-size building blocks. They are kinda like Legos on steroids. Each one is about four inches thick, six inches wide and about a foot long.

In my gloved hands are a J-cloth and a toothbrush. Nearby are four moms, similarly attired.

Volunteer time for the stay-at-home dad has arrived.

Saturday night just ain't what it used to be. Because it used be date night . . . or party night . . . or snuggle-up-with-the-wife-and-a-good-movie night.

But this Saturday night was clean-the-snot-puke-and-food-off-the-toys night at playgroup. Just doesn't have the same lure as the Saturday nights of old.

I seriously considered picking up a six-pack on the way. I mean, if I have to do this, I might as well have a few libations to make the time crawl by just a little less slowly. Instead, I stopped by the drive-through for my Timmy's regular coffee and headed out. Didn't want to look like a bad daddy.

An invitation had been extended to the 30 or so moms that attend this "cooperative" playgroup, in the hopes that the five-member "executive" would not have to face this pile of toys alone. Twenty-nine of those moms chose not to attend. One showed up, but left early.

So, I opened the evening with the most manly task I could find - battery replacement. It involved a screwdriver, thus, it is manly. Okay, it was a small screwdriver and small batteries, and any monkey could do it, but it's as close as I could get, in my yellow gloves, to feeling like I still had a pair.

The battery replacement took about half an hour. Everyone else was working away, wiping down the toys and chatting away about husbands, childbirth, breast feeding and people in town I have never heard of.

So I filled my bin with water, bleach and soap, sat down with my pile of building blocks and started washing. It was about this time that the one mom who did show up bid us a fond farewell. And it was about 30 seconds later that the "treasurer" broke out a couple of bottles of red wine and styrofoam cups.

Should have picked up the six-pack.

Should have picked up the six-pack!

For me, red wine is great with a nice, thick,bloody steak. But for something to drink while "working?" No. Gimme a beer. Thanks anyway.

Anyway, the process for cleaning the blocks. Throw four into the bin. Pick up the first, and wipe it thoroughly with the J-cloth. Put it back into the bin, upside down, so you don't forget which one was already done. Yeah, I know there's only four of them, but after about five minutes, your mind starts to wander, and wonder what the hell you're doing here.

Anyway, after they're all wiped down and upside down, drop the cloth and pick up the toothbrush. Grab the first block and start brushing the crud out of the nooks and crannies. And let me tell you, 50 kids can secrete, spill and spew a lot of crud on building blocks.

So why am I doing this? Well, my boys participate in playgroup. They enjoy playgroup and it is a "cooperative" playgroup, so they say. And that is supposed to mean that it is run by all of the parents who attend. Everyone cooperates to set up the toys at the start, clean up the toys at the end and, once a month, get together to sanitize the toys. For this to work, people need to take part. Fact is, most don't. They figure if they show up, put away a couple of toys at the end of the day, they've done their part.

And, with any group like this, it takes a few dedicated parents to make it really work. I prefer to count myself among those parents. Don't get me wrong. My motivations are not entirely pure of heart and altruistic. The stay-at-home parent thing can, at times, be a tad monotonous - especially during a winter in Thompson, Manitoba. And sometimes, just sometimes, I feel the need to run screaming from the house and engage in adult conversation and activity- even if it is just to clean various bodily secretions from some toy blocks.

Well, to make a long, boring, beer-less story just a little bit shorter, it took about two hours to get through the entire collection. I didn't have much to contribute to the husband-birth-and-boob discussion, so I just concentrated on the booger blocks and dreamed of the day when my boys will enter hockey, or some other sport. A time, somewhere down the road, when Saturday night executive meetings will be held in bars, with other men. And discussions will revolve around wives, snowmobiles, yes, maybe boobs, and the Blue Bombers.

And the best part is that I will not have to wear yellow gloves to participate.

Anyway, after that little rant, here is a picture of the snowman we made on Saturday afternoon to make us all feel a little better: