DadCentric

Dadalogues #1: Video Games

Everything is wonderful now

Today was Father's Day.

Today was the day I delivered on my promised Father's Day gift, by taking my parents out to lunch at one of the more high-end restaurants in the area. The offer was a last-minute decision I reached those few Sundays ago, having tried and failed to come up with a better idea, a more relevant offer, a more tangible, wrap-ready gift concept to serve as an adequate and appropriate "thanks, dad" gift.

It's becoming so difficult.

Should've Worn A Diaper

I'm sitting in a rocking chair in a room. The curtains are drawn, the lights are off, and a white noise machine on a nearby shelf is busy forming a protective barrier against any outside sounds that would seek to disturb the slumber of this room’s inhabitants. In my lap lays my youngest son. This is his room we’re in, and it’s his bedtime we’re working on. I am giving him a bottle, his night-night bottle, the bottle that, along with my rocking and soothing, will send him off to sleep.

I sense that it's taking longer than usual for him to pass out. He is quiet, but restless. His blue eyes are wide open, betraying barely a hint of sleepiness. The heaviness that usually appears around his eyelids about this time is late. Which is bad because, as I sit here, I realize that there’s something I should have done before I sat here. Nature is calling, but I can’t come to the phone just now, but rather than go to voicemail, the ring just gets louder. I try to ignore it by focusing on the task at hand. I focus on the bottle, my baby boy draining its contents, the milk going down into his belly, his little digestive system taking it in and making use of its nutrients, the rest of it being shipped off to be turned into waste, the liquid parts of which will be stored in his tiny little bladder which he is still too young to control, which just reminds me of my own bladder, which seems fuller and fuller by the moment.

Taking From Trees

As I sat there beneath the shade of the old oak tree thinking the thoughts that a father thinks I found myself lost against the waves of rolling wind and the sinking spiral of so many leaves.

Or I would have, had I time to sit beneath an oak tree and a flare for the poetic.

There are leaves that need a good turning and those that should just wilt and die.  Then there are those things you put in your table to make it bigger, but that only lasts for four hours.

Still, you've got to take what you can get.

Bicycle Tricks

My daughter's helmeted head is all I see gliding along the grassy horizon. In a second or two, her shoulders rise out of the summer blades of yellowing green. Then the rest of her comes into view as she rounds the distant curve in the asphalt loop. From under a young dogwood across the park, I see her knees in a slow rhythm, barely fast enough to keep her steady and upright.

Then she stops, as does my heart.

SanDisk SlotRadio Giveaway - What's Your Essential Road Trip Song?

We're in the middle of summer, and many of you are packing up the metaphorical Family Truckster for your metaphorical Trip To WallyWorld. Our sponsors, the good folks at SanDisk, have sent us another SlotRadio digital music player to give to One Worthy Winner.

So in the spirit of The Great Summer Road Trip, we want to know - what is THE most essential road trip song, the one that no long distance car drive should be without? Give us your answer in the Comments section - tell us the song, and why no road trip soundtrack should be without it. The deadline is this Friday at 9:00 a.m. PST; we'll announce the winner on Friday afternoon.

AND THE SLOTRADIO GOES TO...

Alyce. Simply because as weird as it sounds, the title/main theme of "The Mission" score is great driving music.

(Also, I can't believe that no one picked my favorite road trip song - Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild", the theme song to perhaps the two greatest road trip movies ever.)

Bully

In general, I believe kids default to Good. Not good, as in "you cleaned your room all by yourself" good, but true Goodness, that which keeps them from torturing small animals or lighting their younger siblings' hair on fire. 

I didn't always believe that; there was a time when I'd have told you the opposite was true. Specifically, that time was the first few weeks of sixth grade, when I was informed by a grinning little bastard (whom I'll call Jeff T) that he and five of his friends were going to kick my ass after school, punishment for the crime of being the new kid, and a dorky one at that ("A-Fag", they called me, in their minds a clever play on my last name). What I remember was running. I told my teacher, who talked to the boys; I told my mom, who picked me up from school for several days; I remembering running across the field that lay between my school and my house. It was a straight shot, a couple hundred yards at most, and for several months I ran across that field when class let out, not daring to look back as that would slow me down and they would catch me and beat me to a bloody pulp. I ran as fast as fear would push me. 

We spent yesterday at the pool; our friends belong to a local country club, our boys are close, and we're often invited to hang out with them. The pool was busy; there are two pools at the club, and this one was reserved for the kids, a couple of feet deep, a bored teenaged lifeguard endlessly twirling her whistle around on its string. We bought a cheap inflatable air mattress for Lucas, and he was loving it - it was his pirate ship, then it was his surfboard, then it was his spaceship. Lucas and his air mattress attracted the attention of another boy, a stranger. The kid was Lucas' age, perhaps a bit older. He was brandishing a Super Soaker. At first, he just started spraying Lucas with water. Then he'd spray Lucas with water and take the air mattress from him - Lucas asked him to please stop. The kid grabbed it and took it - of course Lucas protested and took it back, but the kid didn't stop. After watching this a few times, I asked the kid to please stop taking Lucas' air mattress.

Then it escalated.

Black Hockey DadCentric Reviews: Kids Talking

There's constant danger lurking around the edges of writing about being a Dad. The truth is surrounded by dishonesty on all sides. You want - believe me I really do want - to write about children as if everything they do and say result in epiphanies that alter your destiny in profound ways. But that's not true. So you try to pepper it with the hard stuff. However, when you start writing about the negative, you run the risk of harsh criticism - the harshest criticism comes from yourself - about being a terrible parent and then some idiot asks you why you even had kids in the first place when you hate them so much. Well first of all, I never tried to have kids, but that's beside the point. And if you give me a bunch of jazz about not having sex if I didn't want kids, then this conversation is over because Black Hockey Jesus just gots to have it. Anyway, complaining about kids doesn't mean you hate them and wish you never had them. It's just that sometimes you really wish they'd shut the fuck up.

Fireworks

I'm taking the easy way out tonight - I can't properly combine words into coherent sentences in order to post something worthy of your time so I'm posting a video that was crucial to my elementary school learning. I'm sure it was with many of you as well. At least those of you who grew up in front of the TV a la Martin Tupper. For those of you born in the 80s or later, this was the Dark Ages, B.C. (Before Cable).

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July. Take a moment to remember the sacrifices of our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) and ponder the significance of what they wrought. Also remember those who paid the ultimate price in defense of this great nation and the freedoms and liberties we enjoy (and often take for granted).

Have a great weekend!

The Declaration of Dependents

We the people of Castle TwoBusy, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common beer fridge and wine rack, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of free and easy movement unrestrained by the grubby hands of children, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of Parenthood.

Article I
Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Assemble away, children. Get together, plot your nasty little plots, then run away and weep as we crush them beneath the authoritarian bludgeon of our will. You may, on occasion, invite other children to join you in assembly — as long as it's only for a couple of hours and/or we get along with their parents. If their parents are dull and/or judgmental, however, they will be declared enemies of the state and summarily executed. Sorry. Them's the rules. Along similar lines, Freedom of Speech only kicks in when you turn 18. Although if you promise to use your indoor voices, we might give you a little slack on this one.

You Can't Swim in an Ice Age

We were supposed to go see Ice Age 7:Dawn of Tony Orlando or some such nonsense.  I was then going to post about it here for your reading enjoyment.

Enjoyment is such a strong word.

However, I'm fairly confident that I can review the movie for you anyway.