DadCentric

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

You may know that I moonlight over at Man of The House. One of my fellow MoTH writers, Josh Katzowitz, wrote a piece a few days ago that got me thinking about my age, and whether or not I act it. It inspired the following post:)

Conventional wisdom says that if you are a dad, you need to set aside foolish/dangerous activities for the sake of your children. Before I had kids, I did plenty: I was an avid surfer, a frequent rock climber, solo backpacker, rugby player and a pseudo-adrenaline junkie. I also went to a lot of Phish concerts, partied in bars until the wee hours and generally behaved like a beach-dwelling twenty-something well into my thirties.

Several years ago, I went through a Harley Obsession. Many guys do; few of those guys have wives who tacitly approved of adding a big V-Twin to the family. My wife did not encourage me, but she didn’t put up much resistance. She bought my logic: Harleys are safer because they’re easier to ride than “Crotch Rocket”-style street bikes, they’re bigger (thus easier for car drivers to see), and they come with a built-in collision avoidance warning system – their signature deafening engines. She wasn’t a Harley fan so much as a fan of the cool leather jacket she’d need to buy in order to be able to ride with me. I’d never ridden a motorcycle, so I did my research: there was a Motorcycle Rider’s School nearby, and my friends who owned Harleys assured me that riding them, once you got the hang of it, was fun and easy. (I didn’t think too much about the notion of “getting the hang” of riding a machine that weighs several hundred pounds, can reach speeds of 80+ mph, and only has two wheels.) I knew the model I wanted: the Heritage Softail. I took a few trips to Harley dealers, sat on the thing, and imagined myself rumbling up the Pacific Coast Highway, the wind in my face.

(You can find out how this all turns out over here. After you finish, pop on back - I wanna hear from you dads out there, and their Significant Others, about why you do or don't wanna grow up.)

A Thug's Game, Played By Gentlemen

The beauty and danger of the game: it rarely stops. Life's a metaphor for rugby.

I remember my first tackle. I'm 35, the point at which everyone younger than me becomes a kid, even if they're technically not. This is my first real match. We are the Old Aztecs. But you'd never know it by looking at me. I've been training for weeks, I'm in the best shape of my life, 175 pounds, most of it muscle. I'm not as fast as I once was, but I'm quick enough, and I can run for hours. I'm at Inside Center (or, if you prefer, Centre). My job is to get the ball, advance it, pound through whoever gets in my way, get the ball out to my wingers, who per my coach are fast, and who will score tries. As I'm hauling ass up and down the field, creating space, shadowing my opposite, my eyes follow the ball and my brain whirrs, processing the game, which hasn't stopped. Run, pass, keep the ball alive. We're playing a side from San Diego State. The Much Younger, Faster, and Leaner Aztecs. Kids. Not that it's doing them much good. Our forwards are grizzled and wily and tough and they are dominating the SDSU pack. The two packs are colliding, smashing together (to the uninitiated, this called a maul - the guy holding the ball is borne up by his teammates, and they all surge forward like a Roman phalanx, and the opposite team's pack swarms together and meets them head on, pushing with shoulders, arms, legs) and there's a yell - "BALL'S OUT!!!" - and all of a sudden my opposite's charging right at me, the big white ball tucked under one arm, the other extended straight at me like a battering ram. This will be a joust, of sorts. He's grinning. Just as his hand is about to introduce itself to my face at a 4:40 clip, I drop my shoulder, surge into him, wrap him up with my right arm, and drive him into the grass. In that moment, I see the surprise in his eyes. I'm an Old Guy. I shouldn't be able to do this. The sun is blotted out by our teammates - the packs collide above us, because in rugby when you're tackled the ball's still live, and both sides can and do battle for possession - and as he rolls and another one of his mates scoops up the ball, he taps me on the back. "Nice hit."

Shoveling

It's fucking cold. It's cold and windy and the skcchh of the shovel is getting on my nerves. Look at her playing in the snow. Little yellow shovel. So cute.

"Yes honey. You are helping me shovel. Oops. Here's your shovel back. Ok honey. That's good, but why don't we throw the snow the other way. Not where we just shoveled. Yes it is hard work."

Skcchh.

"Are you getting cold yet, honey?  Are you cold? You're not? Yes I'll show you how to make a snow angel. Uhhnn. Ok. There you go. Not there though honey. Daddy has to shovel there."

Skcchh. Skcchh.

"What? Yes honey, I'll help you make a snow man. First you make the ball. Then you roll it in the snow. Right, til it gets bigger and bigger.

Sk--"Not there though, honey. Not there. Ok."

Skcchh. "You cold, honey? You are? Yeah, why don't we take you in."

Skcchh. Skcchh.

So much snow. 18.2 inches Heavy. Really heavy snow. I heard it on the radio.

Jesus. I'm fat. And old. How'd I get so old so young? I promise, after this, I am going to start eating healthy again.

This is really gonna hurt. Thank God I took my blood pressure pill. Ok just gotta . . Phew. Ok 20 shovel fulls and then rest.

I swear to god if someone looing came along right now I'd offer him 10 bucks just to do this snow bank.

We don't have any cash on us.

It hurts.

I should just go in the car and turn on the radio and have my heart attack.

I wonder what they're doing inside right now.

Gotta do it. Gotta at least do enough for us to be able to drive out.

I can't wait til the kids are old enough to do this.

I'd barter one of them for a snowblower right now.

I'm hungry.

Fucking Jesus.

I wish we bought a condo. I don't want to live somewhere warmer, I just don't want to shovel anymore.

Maybe I'll lay down and pull a Little Match Girl.

"Grandma. Your lap is so warm Grandma! So Waaarrrmm . . . uh. Heh."

How long have I been out here? It's still light out.

Ok. Fuck. Ok. Finally. Now just salt, sand, clean off the car.

I'll have to rustle up snacks when I get in.

I'm exhausted.

"Daddy, did you shovel the path for me?'

"Yup. Yes I did little girl."

"Thank you daddy."

"You're welcome baby girl. You hungry?"

 

 

 

And Now A Moment Of Silence...

While it does snow in North Carolina, accumulation can be rare and quick at best.

Saturday me and the boys went to the local middle school to toss the football around and try our hand, er legs, at kicking field goals. My oldest son has played soccer for years and has got a cannon for a left leg. He loves football a lot and spent a season at quarterback before submitting to being on a year-round, traveling soccer team.

But he still yearns for the pigskin. 

A Kid Named Crash

My son fell off of his bike for the first time the other day, which is really great because now we’ve got that over with, know what I mean? We’ve got that first big spill out of the way and we can stop waiting for the other shoe to dr....what do you mean he needs new shoes? We just got him those! Didn’t we?

Sorry, got distracted.

The kid’s first bike wreck experience was enhanced by the fact that we were kind of far from our house at the time. He’d been biking, I’d been hoofing it along side of him, a feat that I’m guessing won’t be possible once the training wheels come off. Thus, I got to escort a wailing child and his bike a pretty good distance back to our house, which meant that some of my neighbors probably had the calm of their evenings shattered by the sound of a child crying out to the heavens. Most of my neighbors seem nice, the ones we’ve talked to anyway. I like to imagine them in their houses doing some mundane evening household task -- cooking dinner, watching television, writing strongly worded letters to the editor -- when suddenly, my son’s voice tapped their eardrums. They ran to their windows to see what all this shouting was about and saw a man (that would be me) pushing along a little bicycle with a sad little boy on it. “What’s that man done to that poor child?” they may have asked themselves.

“Oh yeah, sorry kid, I kinda forgot to mention...”

When The Teacher Becomes The Student

As parents and fathers, we often write about how we are trying to raise the best sons and daughters that we can; we talk about how we want to instill respect not just for their fellow man but for nature and that which surrounds them; we talk about not just wanting them to be like us, but to be better than us.

So we spend our days and nights, our weeks and months, teaching both through expression as well as through lesson. Large doses of didacticism have recently come back to bite me in the ass; whether it is the rap career my boys want or their dreams of their own reality television show, they never cease to amaze me with what they walk away from when we break it down to using the tools around you to the best of your ability.

Recently, I heard my oldest son telling one of his friends something, and halfway through I realized the phrase coming out of his mouth was one I had been using with them over the last few months. So it should have come as no surprise that eventually things would turn back on me.

During a recent trip to the skatepark, the kids were watching as I was about to drop-in to the ramp. I second-guessed myself and in a split second I was splayed across the bottom of the cemented transition. The summer had been spent explaining to them how they need to commit to tricks, that you need to charge into a line one hundred percent. I told them that this applies to many facets of life: You need to own the mic, own the stage, own the ramp or own the field. If you don't, your lapse in concentration and commitment will, more than not, bring about unpleasant results.

And here they saw their father do just what he said you shouldn't do.

"You scared, dad?" said my seven-year-old.

I chuckled. "Nope, I just didn't commit. And you see want happened?"

"It's okay to be scared, dad," he said. "Everybody is afraid of something."

And then he turned and pushed off toward the angle of a bank he wanted to carve.

Favoritism?

Are you guilty of it?

Sometimes I am guilty of it.

I find myself unconsciously encouraging one son over another because of their age or their skill set. Sometimes it comes up immediately, "Why did you clap for him and not me?" one of my boys will ask. And you have to stop and think about it.

I often find I'm a little harder on my older son when it comes to some things because I expect him to be older and wiser than his younger brother.

Back in the beginning of July, we went to a friend's lake house and had a blast. It was a weekend of tube'in, kneeboardin' and jumping off rocks.

Both kids took to kneeboarding right off the bat. My oldest Spencer even nailed the first kneeboard 360 of visitors to the lake house. He even got up on the wakeboard as well. I felt like I had the Flip rolling non-stop for both of them while we were out on the boat.

Yet we when got back from the lake, I only seemed to have footage of one son. "Why didn't you Flip me, dad?" said Cole as he sunk into a funk on the coach. "Are you sure there is no footage on there?" I asked him.

And sure enough there wasn't.

I felt like shit.

I made a mental note on various ways of positive encouragement and that I would try to remind myself to give equal praise (if equal praise was due) to each of them.

And then we made it back to the lake.

And then I got to right my wrong... and gave my youngest son the kneeboarding ride of his life. Replete with a Jersey Shore fist pump from him at the end.

Best Hockey Fight Ever?

Kinda cute. Kinda sad. 

When Dreams Come True

At any time in the last few years, if you ask my youngest son what he wants to be when he grows up he will tell you, "A professional ATV rider."

I have no idea how he came to this conclusion.

I'm leaning towards one of his favorite PS2 games, because I don't know a soul who has one.

I was never one to point out that achieving his dream might actually involve riding one.

And then last week it happened.

He got to saddle up on an ATV and ride one for about an hour.

And now he is one step closer to making his dream come true.

 

30 Days of Dads: Laid-Off Dad, "Follow The Bouncing Truncated Icosahedron"

Laid-Off Dad may well be the original* dadblog. The man behind the curtain, Doug French, started it way back in 2003, when people still listened to Linkin Park and Peter Jackson still looked like a hobbit. He's remained remarkably consistent, and continues to put out well-written, insightful and funny posts. You new kids on the scene, you could learn a lot from him. Here, Doug takes a hard look at soccer, a sport beloved by millions of 8-year-olds and Ghanese alike.

*We realize you may have started your dadblog before Doug started his. We don't care. His mastheads are still better than yours.

The other day my boys and I were enjoying some Mancave Time when we had the choice of watching the World Cup or a baseball game. I wanted to show the kids a bit about the global spectacle of Copa Mondial, so I switched it on. And as they were settling in, I thought of the debate that has beset man for decades: Which is more boring: soccer or baseball?

Guys, there is no debate. 

Soccer is just terribly, terribly dull. People argue that soccer’s action never stops, but there’s a difference between “action” and “running back and forth.” When The New York Times tries to live-blog World Cup matches, they manage about a dozen entries in 90 minutes. And that includes … gasp! …substitutions!

I have nothing against goal-based sports. I love hockey and lacrosse, which have action to burn. Soccer, by comparison, is like spinning a bunch of wooden tops on a nok-hockey board. And besides, how exciting can a sport be when 1) you can capture its essence in table format (hello, foosball!), and 2) the table format has more scoring?

Even as I’m typing this, I just saw two last-inning nail-biters as South Carolina and Florida State advanced to the College World Series. Conversely, when Germany went up 2-nil against Australia, half of Sydney figured they might as well start channel-surfing for Home and Away reruns.

I also know that soccer players are amazing athletes, whereas Prince Fielder looks like he’s eaten a few. And the World Cup is far more globe-encompassing than the World Series will ever be. But time is precious, and time with my boys is even more so. If I’m going to commit to quality spectator time with them, I’d at least like to be sure that someone will have won when it’s over.

So come on, soccer nuts. I know you’ve got passion. So bring it. But please keep your voices down, OK? Slovenia-Algeria is on, and the kids are asleep.