5 against 1

I've been hesitant to post about Shane's part in Ashlyn's birthday weekend. I'm afraid I can't do it justice. I don't want to convey that Shane is some stereotypical dumb dad with a bunch of girls dragging him around the mall, that's not him at all. No, he has special things he does with the girls...we each have our niche, you could say. He teaches them little things (he just taught Bethany how to snap, and Ashlyn & Hope are being tutored in fishing 101). He snuggles, talks, and pours into them as often as he can. He enjoys getting to know their friends and especially giving them a hard time.

I have a niche too-breastfeeding. Thus the reason I stayed home from the movies to keep the baby & toddler occupied. We could have switched roles if he could have nursed.

He wanted the day to be great. He rejected the (closer, cheaper) run down theater I found in favor of the newer, bigger, stadium seatier theater (I think I just made up a new word). They saw Race to Witch Mountain then clocked three hours in the mall. He indulged them with the typical girl stuff, like shopping in Claires but then they spent a large amount of time in Barnes & Noble (heaven on Earth for Shane & Ashlyn).

While escorting them from store to store, he was snagged by an Asian woman beseeching him to sit down and enjoy a massage. "Sir, sir, you must sit down...you looked stressed! Look! Look at all these girls! You are stressed, see, see, come sit!"

He did not partake, lol.

However, he jumped at the chance to chum it up with an ex-inmate.

First, I must back track and tell you Shane has an excellent record with his former charges. He's been approached many times in public by someone who calls him only by his last name or by "Boss" which is a dead give-away that they know him from their time in jail. He's proud that they've never called him "Mother...." (sorry, but it's true). One guy still in jail at the time even wrote a nice note to Shane thanking him for listening when he was having a hard time (suicidal).

Ashlyn's birthday was the day his perfect record ended. A guy near Shane started making pig noises. He got more of a reaction from Shane than he bargained for. Shane took off his glasses, looked the guy square in the face and started walking assertively towards him. Backpedaling ensued but Shane only added fuel to the fire by calling out, "Hey, how are you doing now, man? When did you get out of jail?" Embarrassed by the revelation of his time behind bars, the guy promptly moved on to another store.

I think Shane felt a bit of Daddy pride being the one to take Ashlyn & her friends out. We kept trying to one-up each other all weekend. I bragged that I was with it enough to blue tooth, flat iron hair and paint toe nails. Yep, we're made for each other; we spend Saturday nights hanging with 12 year olds and feeling important because of it :)