A good day

Our local Kiwanis Club sponsors an annual Junior Olympics for grades K-6.  It is held each year in May at our high school track, and some members of the high school track team are always there to assist with the events.  I really appreciate the Kiwanis Club for making this investment in our kids, but I also give props to the high school track team members who participate.  The students who are there each year enthusiastically volunteer their Saturday morning, and they seem to really enjoy working with the possible future members of the track team to follow in their shoes.  They are always very encouraging of all the kids, no matter their abilities.

The event was this Saturday, and the weather was perfect.  Dylan, Zachary and Lily participated this year, and both my parents and Jen's parents came to cheer on their Grandkids.  I was never an athlete in school, but I considered joining the track team, and I think I would have enjoyed it.  Jen was taking pictures, and I was supposed to be watching Ben.  At one point in the first competition (Zachary's long jump) I got so involved in cheering for Zachary and Blake (our Pastor's son), that I lost Benny.  There was a moment of panic until we spotted him climbing to the top of the bleachers.  Actually, Zachary spotted him and was yelling and pointing from the field, while waiting for his turn to jump.  Fortunately, the bleachers were enclosed by fencing, but there was still plenty of opportunity for a kid like Benny to get hurt.  That was my "wake up call"... I didn't lose Benny any more, when he was in my charge!

Zachary measured 9'-5" in the long jump, earning him the silver medal, just 3" short of gold.

Lily took the bronze medal in the standing jump.

This was Lily's first year to participate.

Zachary won the gold medal in the obstacle course.

Lily ran the 50M for a silver medal.

This was Dylan's last year to participate and he had a rough and disappointing day.  He signed up to run the 50M, the 100M and the 200M.  He ran the 50M first and pulled a muscle in his upper thigh just short of the finish line.  He was solidly in 2nd place when he pulled the muscle, but limped across the finish line in last place (4th), just seconds away from 3rd.  He limped off the track with a few tears in his eyes, in quite a bit of pain and disappointment, knowing he was out of the competition for the day.  He sat in the stands and watched as the other boys ran the 100M and 200M.

Zachary's third event was the 100M, earning him another silver medal.

 

If you look in the background of this photo, you'll see that Benny was not going to miss out on the running action.  He was getting restless, so Jen's Dad took him out to play on the other side of the field, during the last of the awards ceremony.  At this point, he got away, and ran for freedom across the field.  Here you see him ahead of my Father-In-Law, and about to be cut off by Zachary.

Jen's parent's treated us to lunch at Arby's afterwards and I came home and spent the afternoon working on the final trim needed for the living room to be ready for the soon-to-be-installed carpet.  I knocked off at dinner time.  After dinner, Benny and I took a nice walk to a local park to play and to scout a possible geocache hiding spot.

Early that evening, I casually mentioned that it looked like a good night for sleeping in the tent. I wasn't really serious about doing it, but Zachary latched onto that and really wanted to. Jen wisely reminded me that I shouldn't "put it out there" if I wasn't serious. She was right, so I grabbed the 8 x10 (we own four different tents of various sizes), which goes up quickly. We popped it up in the backyard, grabbed some sleeping pads and bags, and built a backyard fire. After all this, I checked the forecast... mid 40's for the low. Chilly, but the mummy bags can handle that. The last time we tried to camp with Benny, he didn't do so well with sleeping in the tent. Jen suggested that I include him in our "guys night" to see how he would do. I didn't think he'd like a mummy bag, so I put him in a kid-sized rectangular, in his footed fleece sleeper and a fleece hat, with an extra blanket over him. He slept solidly until about 5 AM, when he woke up toasty warm, but wanting Mama. I could have probably got him back to sleep, but he was making a rucus and I didn't want to wake the neighbors, so we all four just grabbed our pillows and went to the house for the last few hours of the morning.

It was one of those Saturdays when it was a good day to be a Dad!

another happy birthday

This is one of those short snippets of life that I never want to forget. 

I've mentioned before that my youngest, Benny (age 3 1/2), is developmentally delayed, and although growing, his verbal skills and vocabulary are behind most kids his age.  One big example is vocabulary to express emotions.  As previously written here and here, he knows what "I'm sad" feels like, but he communicates it, "I sorry".  He also knows what "I'm happy" feels like, but he communicates it, "happy birthday!"

This weekend, Jen was away with her Mom on a women's retreat with her Mom's church.  I was in charge... which means I put aside many of the projects that often distract me, and focused on just being a Dad a little more than I usually do. 

Saturday was unseasonably warm in northeast Ohio... like 70-degree-range-two-months-earlier-than-normal warm!  Saturday evening, I got the fire pit out of the shed and set it up for the first backyard fire of the season.  I was sitting around the fire with all the kids, with Benny cuddling on my lap (the ONLY safe place for Benny to be when a fire is burning!)

Benny looked up at me and sweetly asked, "Dad... this a happy birthday?"

Yes, Benny, not by the calendar, but the moment feels a lot like a happy birthday to me!

Father's Day 2011

Today is the day America designates to honor the role of fatherhood.  As a man, I am the generation that currently occupies the "sweet spot", in that I can celebrate fatherhood with generations in both directions.

This morning, as I took my family to church, I reflected upon the importance of my role as a father, and just how fortunate I am to be trusted with fathering these four young lives.  This afternoon, my immediate family of twelve people, spanning three generations and three households, gathered at a mutually convenient state park for a Father's Day picnic.  It was a good day to be both a father and a son.

A father, his sons, his grandsons and granddaughters

My Dad

Cousins

Ornery

Dylan is happiest with a line in the water

Cousins

"Awwwww, pup-peeee"

Benny was drawn to this adorable puppy at the neighboring picnic group.  Makes me want to get the boy a puppy... but, with 4 kids, who needs another living thing to care for?

My brother brought his canoe

Lily's first ever canoe ride

Dylan got promoted from kids seats in the center, to front seat with a paddle!

Daughters-In-Law

Benny Jay

needed. heeded?

I suppose the early forties are considered the prime of one's life.  For me, though, they have been less than prime, and fraught with difficulties... both those of my own making and those completely out of my control.  Difficulties (which are not the focus of this post) have a way of becoming consuming, distracting, and priority-wrecking.  Quite honestly, I feel as though this period of life resembles the plate-twirling circus act.  There are many days when I feel that I can't deliver all that is demanded of me, and I am struggling to stretch myself thin enough to keep all my plates turning.

But, the US Government, of all people, sent me a larger-than-life priority reminder.  I see it every time I approach my workplace.  I notice it most often when I take a lunchtime walk, because I have more time to focus on it.  In fact, it was on one such walk (while mulling over everything facing me in the coming week) that I first noticed it... I looked up and it was like someone smacked me with it.  The reminder is in the form of the following message, plastered on a huge roadside billboard, right next to my place of employment:

I often feel that I don't have the energy to be a Dad to four kids.  Dad, can you fix this?  Dad, can we do something?  Dad, can you help me with this?  Dad... Dad... Dad... and all too soon they will grow up.  I already look at my ten year-old and wonder where ten years went.  Just yesterday, it seems, he was the size of my two year-old, and now I am buying him deodorant and he's asking me to check out his fuzzy start of a pre-pubescent moustache.

The provider in me knows that there are many priority "fixes" that I am struggling to handle... and they are legitimately very high priorities, and cannot be ignored.  But, the father in me knows that to "take time to be a dad today" also needs to be of utmost priority.  Unfortunately, the dad role is sometimes the easiest to brush aside.  I hope and pray that something "gives" soon, and I can have a little more room to breathe and focus on the dad role, but the current challenge is to give my best balance to all my priorities in the midst of an imperfect situation.

The reminder is definitely needed.  The question to myself (and rhetorically to you, if it applies)... will it be heeded?