Honorable Mention

I am officially running for Father of the Week.

I realize it is a long shot, and I know the week is not over, but I feel like I’ve done my part to at least be under consideration for the award.

Of course, I have my good friend unemployment to thank for giving me this great opportunity and a boat load of free time.

The week began on Monday with Field Day.

Field Day is the official name for “kids get a day out of the classroom to play a bunch of games in a local park.”

It always comes at the end of the year and ours included a BBQ, jumpy castle, pickup soccer games, softball, lacrosse and a whole lot of quality gossip time.

My daughter and her friends seemed to enjoy the last part more than anything.

She took full advantage of the break to hang out with her buddies, but we did sneak in a four-on-four flag football game before lunch.

There were probably more than 200 students there, representing sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The sixth graders occupied most of the field, playing every game possible.

The seventh graders huddled in groups, talking about... ...whatever seventh graders talk about.

And the eighth graders were counting the minutes to the end of their middle school career.

Even though I was not invited into the gossip groups, I think I earned major points for just being there.

Tuesday was a day for daughter #2, child #3.

And it was a big day too.   It was her Kindergarten graduation.

Tuesday is also the day that my 80-year old mother and I get together each week for a little nosh.

But instead of a meal, this time I picked her up at the assisted living facility and brought her to school for the ceremony.

I wouldn’t say I am Captain Sentimental, but I certainly enjoyed the concept of giving my mom the opportunity to be there.

If you’ve ever been to one of these events, it’s 90% who cares and 190% the greatest show on earth.

(The 190 part is anything involving your child.)

I don’t know how they did it, but this Kindergarten sendoff somehow turned into a one-hour production -- full of songs, stories and a nicely edited music video to pictures of the kids.

At the end, my daughter came over to give everyone a hug, including my mom, which forced me to use the final kleenex in the box.

My mom has been through hell and back in her life, so to see her enjoying herself, even for an hour, is a great occasion.

Article #3 in my bid for Father of the Week came on Wednesday with another field trip.

This time, my son’s fifth grade class took a trip to a Tattoo and Piercing Convention....

...better known as a local amusement park.

I’m not one to judge pure beauty, but I’m guessing a LARGE percentage of the people drawing on and cutting into their skin will regret it at some point in their life.

Heart tattoo on the arm with your kid’s name.  Cool.

Nose piercing.  Hip.

Gallons of permanent ink covering your face and/or neck.   Disgusting.

I realize I sound 196 years old, but I’m just sayin.

Nevertheless, we spent five hours going on rides that took us upside down and inside out.  There were more twists and turns than the Lost finale.

We got there early enough to avoid any lines and by the time it got busy we were back on the school bus headed home.

It was a great day.

I really thought I had clinched the award.

Or so I thought.

As hard as it was, I refused to give in to each of my son’s requests to spend money at the park.

And there were many of them.

Dippin Dots.  Cotton Candy.  Funnel Cake.  Stuffed Animal.

No, no, no and no.

The last thing he needed was ANY of that, especially at those prices, but I must say seeing your child with puppy dog eyes usually works -- even at age 11.

It definitely worked for the new favorite for Father of the Week.

One of the dads on the trip was determined to win his daughter a GIANT stuffed animal in one of the carnival games.

And the game looked pretty easy.

You have five metal disks -- each the size of a DVD.   All you have to do is drop the five disks, one by one, onto a wooden board and cover a red circle that is about six inches wide.   

Cover the circle, you win.

Leave any part of the red showing and you lose. 

Each game costs $3 or you can play twice for $5.

You only need to win once to take home a bear three times the size of your child.

That should’ve been his first clue.

Or his 17th clue.   Or 33rd.

When all was said and done, he had donated $110 to the arcade and had exactly zero wins.

I can only imagine what a trip to Las Vegas costs him.

The high schooler working at the park must’ve felt really bad for him, so he gave the determined dad a much smaller stuffed animal as a parting gift.

Mission accomplished.

I saw the little girl smiling from ear to ear as she boarded the bus with her new friend.

Playing countless carnival games to win your daughter a new stuffed animal.  $110.

Spending the week with your kids.  Priceless.

Maybe I am still in the running to win the award after all.

Games Without Frontiers

Football, Soccer, Ping-pong, Gockey.

Name a game and we pretty much played it during our school’s three-day retreat to the mountains last week.

And that was just during our “free” time.

There was not shortage of activities, which made for some great father/daughter bonding time.

She beat me in Tetherball.  By cheating.

I beat everyone in Ga-Ga, three times.  By getting lucky.

We lost as a team in Ping-Pong.  By two points.

After two action packed days, the trip was coming to an end, but not without the finale: 

• Eco-Stratego, Mini-Survivor meets tag meets hide-and-go-seek

Here are the rules -- two teams hide in the mountains... each player represents an animal...  one player on each team is the sun.

Find the sun and you win.  

Along the way, if you run down someone from the other team, tag them, and exchange your rank.

Spider beats fly.  Human beats lizard.  Bear beats Lion or is it Lion beats Bear.

Rule book please.

As you might imagine, this is serious business, especially for the counselors.

So serious, that the sun gets a bodyguard with him, usually a low-ranking animal like a flea or something.

In game one, it took our team a little while and a lot of manpower, but we finally tracked down the sun and brought home the win.

Game two was a lot more challenging.

Our Stratego strategists once again did a masterful job of hiding our sun in our zone, but this time so did the other team.

So good that we had to call it a draw when the game went too long.

The bell rang, signaling for everyone to come back to home base.  

The game and the trip were officially over.

Within minutes, we had all gathered for a closing group picture.

Minus two people -- the sun and the bodyguard from the red team.

At first it was no big deal.

30 minutes later, no one was too concerned.

60 minutes later, it was a different story.

By this point, the school bus had arrived and was packed up, ready to take the kids back to school.

All the kids but two.

Nobody seemed too worried on the outside, but I must say that my heart was beating a little faster than usual.

Maybe it was the altitude or maybe it was the fact that I used to work in local news.

The two missing kids were not from my group, not from my cabin and not from my Eco-Stratego team, but at this point none of that mattered.

What if?  

I know chaperones are always supposed to be encouraging and optimistic, but WHAT IF?

We were approaching the 90-minute mark without hearing a word from the boys.

A car had already been sent to search for them, megaphone and all.

The result was nothing.

Thankfully the weather was perfect and we were in the middle of the day, but I must say, my mind was really wandering.

The two missing boys were no longer a bodyguard and a sun, they were just two sons.

I couldn’t help but think of the conversation between the school and the kids’ parents.

The bus left with two missing seats and headed home to get everyone back on time.

Everyone but them.

One of the teachers waited to drive them home separately.

Hopefully.

Once it was determined that the boys would not be coming back on their own, a group of about 10 adults headed into the mountain for a search and rescue mission.

For about 15 minutes, we hiked up and down, right and left, shouting their names every few seconds.

I must’ve covered several football fields when I heard a scream echoing through the hills.

“WE FOUND THEM.”

By this point, I wasn’t sure if I was hearing things, but I sure liked what I thought I was hearing.

Sure enough, the boys had been found.

Here comes the sun had never sounded so good.

Apparently, they had unintentionally moved beyond the boundaries of their zone and had found a hiding place where they would not be found.

By anyone.

Within minutes the boys had returned to the lodge and smiles had returned to our group.

Mission accomplished.

We had found the sun.   The game was over.

Extreme Makeover

For those of you that have read my blog since Day 1 (or even Day 11), you know that I am Jewish.

And other than perhaps some of my rebellious brethren from the good book, this just in, Jews don’t hunt.

Or fish.

Or camp.

Ok, maybe some do, but I don’t.

Don’t blame me, it was the way I was raised.

I was also raised that there is nothing more important than family and now as the parent of three, there is nothing more important than the kids.

I guess that explains why I just went on a three-day camping retreat with my daughter’s school.

To some of you diehards, it may not have been camping by definition, but the combination of mountains, cabins, sleeping bags and 56 seventh graders, qualifies for me.

In plain and simple english, it was a GREAT time.

Great father/daughter bonding time.

Great getaway from the real world time.

Great time.

This is the second straight year that I’ve been a chaperone on this school trip.   Last year we went to one part of our state.  This time we went to another.

The days are filled with a bunch of activities from orienteering to canoeing to hiking. 

Did I mention that I was Jewish?

On Day 1, I pretty much played spectator, watching the kids climb up a bunch of trees, with a harness of course, and then proceed to do things I would never consider.  

Not even when I was 13.

My daughter asked me to try it.  I turned her down.

The instructor offered.  I declined.

My daughter said puh-leeeeeeeeze.   I said, no thank you.

Just like I did last year.

And like last year, I couldn’t have felt more guilty.   Other parents were doing it, just not me.  

Talk about middle school peer pressure.

I was somewhere between really nervous and really not interested.  Honestly, probably more of the second, but still plenty of the first.

I had no interest in walking across a tight rope about 30 feet above the ground.

I had no interest in pulling myself up a series of six wooden planks, each plank about five feet higher than the previous one.

And I had ABSOLUTELY no interest in doing “the leap of faith”, where you climb 20 feet up a tree to a wooden platform that you then jump off of into mid-air, hoping that your rope and harness do their job.

You can call me any name in the book, but it wouldn’t hurt more than the guilt I was feeling for letting my daughter down.

I apologized.

Like I did last year.

She said it was no big deal.

Like she did last year.  
But you and I know better.

I don’t know if I was the only parent to take a pass, but I do know that I was the only parent that mattered to my daughter.

But give her credit, she NEVER made me feel bad.  I did it all on my own.

Day two was all about indoor rock-climbing.  On a beautiful wall, more than 40 feet high.

Another sport I’ve never really thought much about.

I sat there for nearly 90 minutes watching the kids go up and down the wall, side to side, having a blast.

With just a short time left in the session, the instructor turned to me.

But before she could get the question out, I said, “YES,” without one ounce of hesitation.

Why?  I have no idea.

I guess I realized that enough was enough.

Did I want to climb up a rock wall?   N to the O.

But unlike this blog, it was not all about me.

As I squeezed my size 11 feet into the size ten shoes, the biggest they had, I took a glance across the room at my daughter’s face.

She was somewhere between excited and scared to death.

By this point, she had about zero percent faith in my ability to be an extreme athlete.

And why would she?  I’d never even tried before.

Until now.

I jumped into my harness and headed to the wall.

Putting one foot in front of the other, I went from 0-40 feet in about forty seconds.  

A world record, probably not.

A Jewish record, perhaps.

Either way, to see the smile on my daughter’s face was all worth it.

For the first time in two years, my daughter’s dad was not a wuss.

Bungee jumping, here I come.

Live and Learn

My wife loves kids.

She loves our three kids.

She loves her 400 kids.

That second group is the number of children she has taught in the last 15 years as a first grade teacher.

This year she has a class of 26 students, but today only 25 showed up.

The absent child would have preferred to be at school, but she didn’t get that choice.

Over the weekend, she attended a birthday party, where there was cake and ice cream, and a slide.

Unfortunately, before the dessert was served, she fell off the slide and bumped her head.

Her parents took her to get checked out and they were told their child had a mild concussion.

A few hours later, the headache became a lot more serious when the little girl started throwing up.

As you would expect, her parents immediately took her to the emergency room where a cat scan showed severe swelling in her head.

Had the parents waited, the result could have been tragic, but thankfully, the prognosis is for a full recovery.

The doctors said that for the next few weeks, she must stay at home, do something effortless, like watch a lot of TV and most important, don’t use her brain.

Now that might be easy for you and me -- well, I KNOW it’s easy for me -- but for an active seven-year old girl, it will be a lot more challenging.

If all goes well, she will be back in my wife’s class in a short time, a very small price to pay for something that could have been a whole lot worse.

As a father, there is NOTHING more important than the safety of our kids and when I hear about an accident like this one, it makes you do exactly what that little girl is not supposed to do, THINK.

Like most children these days, our kids have a steady diet of birthday parties and play dates and the occasional sleepover, and we usually say yes without any hesitation.

For those times that we don’t give an immediate approval, we usually get that puppy dog face with the one word plea to make sure we say yes.

“Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeese!”

Every parent has heard it.

Every teacher has seen it.

When my wife shared this story with me tonight, I couldn't help but think how I would be feeling if I was that little girl's parent.

Ultimately, we want to do whatever we can to keep our kids out of harm's way, but unfortunately that's not always possible.

Being a full-time stay-at-home dad for the last year and change has taken the relationship with my kids to a level that I didn't know existed.

Everyday I have the honor of taking them to school, making their meals, helping them with homework and most of all, just being their dad.

I know someday I will be going back to work, but thankfully, I have had the opportunity to renumber my priorities and place my family where they belong, at the top of the list.

And that's a great lesson to learn.

N-E-R-V-E-R-A-C-K-I-N-G

Performing under pressure in front of a crowd is nothing new to my 12-year old daughter.

In fact, just three days ago, her dance troop was the opening act at a packed arena before an NBA game.

This afternoon, the crowd was in the hundreds, not thousands, but the pressure felt like no other.

It was her school spelling bee, attended by the entire student body.

She was one of a dozen participants looking to win the title and represent her school in the district championships.

In the past, work has precluded me from being able to attend such events. But as they say, unemployment has its benefits.

Like many of us, I’ve enjoyed the National Spelling Bee, watching kids sweat it out and in some cases pass out, from the competition.

But I’ve never had anything invested in it.

Until now.

I can guarantee that being a parent during a spelling bee is 1,000 times worse than being a participant.

While I was sweating out EVERY letter, my daughter was calmly cruising through her words.

I was sitting there spelling each word in my head like it was going to make a difference, but she certainly didn’t need my help.

One-by-one, the contestants fell.

One of the rules that eliminated several kids was that once you started spelling your word, you had to keep going. No turning back.

That would’ve knocked me out, about 10 times.

As they moved from round-to-round, the crowd started getting into it. More oohs and aahs than a fourth of July fireworks show.

In the end, it came down to one other contestant and my daughter, in that order.

The school principal made it clear that if contestant #1 missed a word, my daughter would have to spell the next word correctly, plus one more word to win the title.

On cue, girl #1 misspelled the word, Scholarship -- I’m not that sharp, but there’s an irony in there somewhere -- which set up my daughter for the win.

Two words later, we had a victory.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.

Now for the record, I am NOT one of “those” parents.

I was truly prepared to take my daughter out for ice cream for finishing 3rd or 4th. I was proud of her for just trying.

But when it got down to the final two, I started rooting. Quietly.

Unfortunately, the girl who finished second took it very hard, as if she had just lost a spelling scholarship.

My daughter on the other hand took it all in stride.

Not a sweat mark anywhere.

Except on my face.