Not The Fun Parent

As I drove Zeb home from daycare, he rehashed his whirlwind time with Regis the day before.
While I was in bed with a stomach bug, Regis stayed home from work and took Zeb to the town dump. They drank hot chocolate at Starbucks.They lunched at the pizza place, where Regis bought Zeb a small rubber ball from the vending machine.
"If you took me to Nabor Pizza, you wouldn't buy me the ball, would you?'' Zeb asked.
"No,'' I answered. "Probably not. ''
I fumbled for a way to bolster my image.
"When you're home with me, we do a lot of grocery shopping, or we go to doctor appointments, or buy clothes, and if you're good sometimes I let you get some Skittles from the machine.''
This wasn't helping.
"When you're with me, we go to Friendlys!'' I said brightly. (And we usually do, at least once a week. He likes me to draw a picture of him on the place mat and when we're alone in the bathroom, he begs me to stop singing along with the oldies piped through the speakers, like "Tell Me Something Good,'' by Rufus, but secretly, I know he digs it).
"When you're with me, you have play dates sometimes,'' I offered.
Daddy doesn't do that, I wanted to add, but stopped myself.
I wanted to say that I was the every day chopped-liver parent and that while this was dull and annoying, even for me, I was the better and more necessary of the two.
I couldn't afford to be indulgent because I had sacrificed my career ambitions to stay home with him and Lulu two days a week--and, dammit, on those two days, shit had to get done!! Chicken nuggets had to be purchased. Overdue insurance bills had to be paid. Play dates had to be held at our house so he and Lulu had well-rounded social lives and so the full time stay-at-home moms would owe me if I ever had to call them at the last minute and beg them to pick him up from daycare.
But I didn't say any of that because it wasn't fair to Regis. Even though he isn't with them as much, he never fails to make time for them: baking brownies in Lulu's Easy Bake oven; playing board games that make my eyes glaze over and cheerfully taking them on weekend errands so that I canvacuum the living room in peace or read the paper for 15 minutes.
And actually, as Zeb pointed out himself, after a day with Zeb and Lulu, even Regis's good humor wore thin. He removed them from Foodtown when they misbehaved. They fought over the mini-shopping carts, and when they continued to shriek, as a disapproving neighbor looked on, Regis was as embarrassed as I would be, and as drained when he came home to cook dinner.
I resisted the urge to gloat and told Zeb: "You don't see daddy as much so time with him is kind of special. He buys you things that I might not and takes you place that I wouldn't, and that's nice. But you and I have things that we do together that are important, and we have fun sometimes, too.''
"Yeah,'' Zeb said absently and gazed out the window at the Christmas lights.
I was boring him.
But I was being a grown-up. And I was proud of myself.