Ode to a Tardy Pizza-Man

When K was getting ready to go on her trip, we talked about dinners and bed-time and things like that. Offhandedly, one of us mentioned that we could do pizza one night as a little treat for Reid because it usually means we get to take in a mind-expanding episode of "The Backyardigans" while we eat our dinner.

I'm only commuting into the office three days this week, so I picked one of those days for pizza-night. Reid was excited, of course.

Both kids were playing as I ordered the pizza and started clearing some room amid the family-room rubble for us to eat in there. I started feeding Sania (bananas and apples and chicken and green beans and everything everywhere!) which helped time pass. All was going well. But the pizza-man never came.

I called the pizza place, and they called the delivery man, but he never answered. An hour passed. I made Reid a sandwich. I called the pizza place again. No news. It was like my pizza had fallen into a black hole.

I was about to make myself a sandwich as well, as bedtime was only minutes away. Then I heard the sheepish rapping on the door. Pizza man, holding an alarmingly cold pie.

The day started strangely, too. That snow I reported on kept falling. We had a two-hour delay by morning, and that sent a confusing bundle of messages to Reid, who spends the first few minutes of most days determining whether he has to go to school today. Yet there was no rushing around, and he was suspicious while playing with abandon for the found hours at home. It was good, though, because single-parenting this week has sharpened my focus on his need to spend some time with a parent focusing only on him. While he has responded marvelously to Sania in so many ways, I know he has lost the undivided attention of his favorite playmates, mom and dad. So we played, and chatted, and visited a coffeeshop on our way to school. And he told me, "you're a good dad." I sure hope so, son.