Father’s Day (An Open Letter to My Son About His Grandfather)

Posted on by Standard 4

Son,

I try to be a good influence on you. There are times that I know I’m not that great of a dad. For that, I am sorry. I am working on being the best dad that I can be. There are times like when I lost your trust that makes me feel like an awful father. Or the days where I can teach you that listening to your mother is a good thing. Then there are days where you do not want me to go to work and just hug my leg until I have to go. It is not easy being a father, but I learned from the best.

father

You might not realize yet, but your dad also had a dad who was a great influence in his life. That is right, Grandpa! The person that you usually see through the phone on a Face time call. The man that you are so excited to see, who drives 8 hours to come see you, and to have you just be goofy and not play with him. Little do you realize, that he was a major influence in my life. I learned so much from him, despite the grief that I caused him. He made it to every little league game, the man who dropped everything to teach me how to mow the lawn, and the man who passed down his love for technology to his son.

It may appear that your grandfather and me have a great relationship, and we do, however, it has not always been that way. I did give him a lot of grief growing up, whether it was the time that he would not let me go to a summer long summer camp or that I was tired of him coaching each my baseball teams. What I did not realize was just the type of father that he was being, a caring loving father. I see that now that I am a dad.

Ever since he became a grandfather, I have seen a change in him. I have seen the relationship between me and him grow substantially since he became your grandfather. We talk more, we even hug now, which is a huge step for the two of us. A lot of it has to be that I have grown-up and taken after your grandfather, but part of that is because you. He may not know it, but he has passed down wisdom to me that I hope I will pass down to you, family before everything. No matter your wealth or your popularity, family will always be there. Did you have a rough day? Your family will always be there to pick you up. Did you have a bad day on the ball field? Your family will help you break out of your slump. In the end family is all you have.

grandfather

Kid, you might not know this, but you are extremely lucky to have a grandfather who loves you as much as he does. When I see him playing on his iPad with you I cannot help but smile knowing that the two of you are going to have an incredible relationship. I see the joy in his eyes when he sees you and the smile on his face. He taught me how to be a father and now, he is teaching me to be a grandfather.

Son, I only wish that I could be half the father that your grandfather was to me. I look at it this way, I had a pretty good teacher growing up and I will try to pass that down to you.

Love,
Dad

How I Lost My Son’s Trust and Gained it Back in One Day

Posted on by Standard 2

I pride myself on being a good cook.  I’m better off being outside next to the grill and one of the things that I have become accustom to grilling is a hot dog.  Not for me, but for the Kid.  He loves them! Can you blame him?

trust

One night, I was finishing up a pair of pork chops on the grill, and a hot dog for the Kid.  I pulled the dog, chops, and potatoes off the grill and brought them to the table.  I served up our delicious meal.  I made one slight change to my grilling method,which I’m still perfecting before making it public, and our pork chops were excellent.  The Kid was chowing down on some strawberries and some graham crackers.

I looked down at our dog who was panting from being outside and said, “You are a hot dog aren’t you?” She proceeded to look at me like, I don’t know what you are talking about but I’m waiting for the kid next to you to drop some food.

The Kid looked up from finishing off the crackers, looked at me, then to the hot dog, then to our dog, and back to the hot dog.  The most pathetic whimper was let out when I realized exactly what I had done.  It was that moment that I realized by calling our dog a “hot dog” the Kid was associating it with the hot dog that he was eating.  He flat-out refused to finish his meal.

I felt awful.  I tried to explain that a hot dog is not an actual dog but to no avail.  Seeing the look on his face and knowing that he was thinking, “What are you going to do to Anna dad?”

After making an exception of not taking one bite of everything on your plate, we let him down to play.  I went to clean up the table, but left the hot dog in question on the table.  Part of me was wondering if he would forget the entire conversation and come back hungry.

To make the situation up to the Kid, I built a tent.  A tent to my son is just a blanket covering up your entire body.  When we were both in the tent, we told each other secrets, popped our head out of the blanket looked at Hot Mama and just giggled to some unknown whispers. As we pulled the blanked back over our heads, I asked, “Are you hungry?”  He responded with a big “YES!” and then went to his seat and started chowing down on his hot dog.

This was one of those teachable moments for a father and son.  While it might be difficult for a 2-and-half year old’s mind to comprehend that a hot dog is not actually made up of hot dogs, it was probably the first time that he realized that what he eats, sometimes was once a living breathing thing.  For me, I found out that I should never EVER compare something we are about to eat to be or was a living breathing thing.   You live and learn!

Have you ever lost your child’s trust only to gain it back again?

Note to Self: Never Tell a 3-Year-Old This…

Posted on by Standard 6

There are a few things that I have learned along my journey in parenting.  One of which I just recently wrote about in a letter to the Kid, others I probably should have written down to remember.   I did not realize that though, that telling a 3-year-old would result in catastrophic chaos.

Telling my son we would be flying in a plane to go on vacation.

Never Tell a 3-year-old this

He is ready for vacation already

Some of you are probably asking, what the big deal is?  Well, our vacation is a month out.   I can wait, in fact I’ve learned patience as a parent.  Patience to a 3-year-old is about the span of 5 minutes.

My first mistake is that I pointed to the sky one night as a plane flew by and said we are going to ride in one of those soon.  My resulting error was probably in one word, soon.  Never say that to a toddler.   About 5 minutes later another plane flew by, and I began to wonder if we were on the flight path to the local airport and began to fear that airplane fuel might be dumped onto my house or a plane’s engine might cut out on approach and come crashing into our house, my son though said, “We ride in that plane?”  He said it with an excitement that can only be described as me skipping out the door at work before a 3 day weekend.  Telling the Kid that, more than likely, the plane that he sees will not be the plane we ride on, you could tell he was crushed.

The Kid has also stuck onto one other word within my vacation statement, the word, vacation.   Now, any moment I get up from the couch his eyes open wide and he asks, “Vacation?” I sadly have to look at him and say, “No, not right now son later.”  At which moment I regret saying the word later because in 5 minutes he will be asking me the same question.   When he wakes up in the morning, he will ask again.

With our, and my much-needed vacation, a full month out, I should have known better than to say something to the Kid, but I had to go and open my big mouth.  You can ask Hot Mama, I tend to do that a lot and my foot ends up shutting me up only after I caused enough damage to take out the Hoover Dam.

For you more experienced parents, once you have told your child about an exciting vacation in the future, how do you keep them from asking the question every single day?

Listen To Your Wife, or This Might Happen

Posted on by Standard 5
listen to your wife

Kid,

When you get married, I have one piece of advice for you, listen to your wife.  This did not hit home until a day that I almost left you at daycare.

Your mother and I were having a conversation after you had gone to bed where she was talking about having a Girl’s Night the next day.  To me it sounded like she was still just talking about it, but to her, she was really asking me to put it in my calendar that she would be gone on the next evening.   I do not remember anywhere in the conversation her saying that this IS going to happen so naturally, being the man that I am, I brush it off.

The next morning as your mother was getting ready for school and I was walking out the door, forgetting my lunch like usual, she once again asks me if I am working late.  I was not, and as I was looking around for the lunch that I had made just 2 minutes earlier she asks, “So you can pick the Kid up?”  Either I was not paying attention or my go-to answer when your mother asks me a question is Yes, I answered “Yes.”  Out the door I went.

I won’t bore you with the details of what went on that day at work, I will save that for Take Your Kid To Work Day that I know right now you are looking forward to but, when you are 9 probably not so much.  My day was so full of exciting meetings and I was looking forward to getting out the door.  I call your mother with what I call, the nothing phone call, the one where either she or myself calls each other to tell them that we are on our way home.  Once you have a girlfriend and eventually wife you will understand what I mean by it.  This nothing phone call ended up in nothing because your mother did not answer, which I thought was weird.  I called our home phone (a home phone is something to you that is probably like what an 8-track tape is to me OLD) still no answer.  I thought that maybe she was either outside, her phone was dead, or she was picking you up from daycare.  At that moment it could have been any one of those.

I continue to try and reach your mother as I am driving home from work and still no answer.  When I get home, the garage door opens and her car is not there.  When I walk in the door, the dog is still in her kennel and barking to get out and go to the bathroom.  At this moment I start to get worried, I send your mother a text message asking “Are you OK?”  5 minutes goes by and no response.

I begin to think the worst and wonder if you have been picked up from daycare.  I call the center and they said that he has still not picked up.  Now, my mind is really beginning to wonder.  As I am driving to pick you up there is something in the back of my head telling me “maybe she was going on a Girl’s Night” but like the night before I brush it off.

When I walk in to pick you up, your teacher asks me what is going on?  I explain that I haven’t been able to reach my wife and I did not know that I am supposed to come pick you up.  He said that I could use the center’s phone to call your mother’s phone because maybe she is avoiding my calls.  I reassure him that it is probably OK and that maybe she is just having a Girl’s Night that I am supposed to remember about but don’t.

We get home and I make one last-ditch effort to reach your mother.  Again, nothing.  At this point I’m beginning to wonder what happened to her.  Did she get into an accident? Will a police officer come knocking on my door telling us that news that we would not like to hear? What happened?

Before I let it get to me my phone begins to ring, it’s your mother.  When I answer she begins to ask “Is everything OK I have a text message and 8 phone calls from you?” I laugh and ask “Well is everything OK with you? Where are you?”  She reminds me that she is having a Girl’s Night and wonders if I picked you up.  Well of course I picked you up I called daycare to see if you were still there!  I tell her that she tends to remind me when things like this are going on, so usually this kind of situation is avoided.  Right after I get off the phone with your mother, we have our own Boy’s Night, a pizza is ordered, baseball on TV, a beer in my hand and a cup of milk in yours.

listen to your wife

We both laugh about it now.  But, son, there is a valuable lesson here that you need to remember,  listen to your wife.  I pride myself on being one of those husbands who listens but women are very cryptic and I can’t solve the puzzle sometimes.  So here is a challenge for you, try to listen to your mother to see if you can really tell what she is saying, I have been trying to do it for 6 years, and once you figure it out, let me know.

Love,
Dad

Son, You Make Me Proud

Posted on by Standard 2

Son,

I don’t think I have told you how proud of you I am lately.  You are a remarkable toddler who is extremely smart and resilient.   Your ability to learn things quickly puts a smile on the face of your mother and myself.   Also you pick your self right up after you have fallen and do not let that deter you from doing whatever it is that you were trying to do.

proud

You are already saying your ABC’s and even recognize about 15 letters, the ability to do that makes your mother and myself extremely proud.   In the middle of dinner you will all of a sudden just break out in the ABC song and say them all right there for us, serenading us as we eat.  You can also already count to 11! You can even recognize the numbers in your number book, which is just simply amazing for your little 2 year-old brain.

There is one thing that you do that makes me, as a father, extremely proud.  Your ability to just pick yourself right back up after being bullied.  The other day another kid came up behind you as you were playing basketball with your friends and pushed you down on the ground.  What amazed me though was that you did not cause a ruckus.  You shrugged it off and kept on playing.  You were the example.  Some dads would be proud if you were to get back up and push the bully back, but not me.  You did the right thing and that reassures me that I am being a good dad.

To be honest son, there are times that I feel like I am not doing the best job being a father.  In times like this though, it shows me I am doing just fine.  When I see you hit a baseball off the tee, throw a baseball the write way, say your ABC’s, and our little secret of being able to say chicken butt to each other without mom knowing.  I know that you will turn out just fine and you make your father proud.

Love,

Dad

 

In This Time of Tragedy, I See Hope

Posted on by Standard 5

Kid,

You will never know what happened just a day ago in Boston.  You will hear about it every year the Boston Marathon ran through the streets.   I will do my best to not dwell on what happened.  Something tells me that you were aware something was happening, I spent more time with you, I was more patient, and I held you just that much tighter.  It is sad that it took something like this happening for me to take a moment to pause to spend time with you.

There was something that legendary anchorman Tom Brokaw (I had to do everything to keep from saying Ron Burgandy, who you will learn more about later in life) said last night during the late news that struck me (I’m sorry I can not remember exactly what he said), but it was something along the lines of his grandchildren and their children will not know the age of innocence and being able to play outside, or go to a sporting event, or going anywhere without fear.

Son, there was a time, when I was a child, when I could just tell your grandmother and grandpa that I was going down the street to play with some friends or at the tree-house just down the street.  They were never worried about sexual predators or worried about what was going to happen at school.  They were not afraid to let me out of their sights, maybe they were and I just did not see it.  Times have changed though.

You might be 15 and I maybe still saying that I need to be outside watching you as you shoot basketball hoops, or dropping you off at school, telling you each time you open the car door saying that I love you in front of your classmates.  You will get annoyed at it, I did when your Grandmother did it to me, in fact, I still do.  You will get annoyed at the need for me to always know who you are with and whose parents will be there watching you.   Son, this is for your own good, and it is because of the people who caused the Boston Marathon Bombings, Sandy Hook and Columbine, 9/11, and Oklahoma City that bring these questions and this watchful eye.  It is only out of love.

While I am talking a lot about fear, I see hope.  I see hope that humanity will change, that times will change once again.  I see a time where we do not have to be so fearful.  A time when all the good people on this earth have thrown out all the bad people.   Not to get all hippie on you, but that is what I see.  There is hope son,  I can see that hope in your mother’s eyes, I can feel it in my heart, and most importantly, I can see that hope in your eyes.  So here is to hoping my son, I love you!

hope in his eyes

Love,

Dad

Oh I’m Sorry

Posted on by Standard 1

Son, it has been a while since I shared a story with you. You have been learning so quickly that is difficult to keep up. Yesterday though you just did something so dang cute that I have to share this memory! You ran up to Anna (our new puppy) as she was sleeping against the wall to look out the window. You proceeded to say “I am sorry Anna!”

Now whether you meant it when you said you were sorry or not I have no idea. My guess is that you did mean it, you tell Anna you love her all the time. You give her giant bear hugs and kisses before bed. You want to play with her so badly that you get just a bit to rough and she ends up running away.

None of this is your fault, you are still learning how to play with Anna. We adopted her because you needed a play pal and I am confident she will become that for you. Until then I will continue to help you play with her so she knows that you won’t hurt her.

You have learned when to say “I am sorry” which is a trait that your mother and I appreciate. You are not acting out in a malicious way, you are just being a two and a half-year old.

Oh I'm Sorry

I love you,
Dad