Being Dad

Every dad has one.

I was going to talk about immigration today, but then my kids made me breakfast this morning and I remembered "oh yeah, it's Father's Day". My wall calender still says January 2012, so you can imagine how bad I am at keeping track of holidays and dates in general. You can also imagine how that gets me into trouble with the wife at least twice a year. I never forget Mother's day, my kids always bail me out on that one, thank goodness. 

In my defense, my calendar still says January because during January of this year, my youngest son for no reason made me something, a piece of paper with crayon coloring on it that said he loved me. And well, that's not the sort of thing you just stick in a drawer. Nobody prompted the kid to do that, it wasn't a special holiday or anything. He just did it, and I wanted it displayed in a place of prominence. So I removed the nail from the wall holding up the calendar, poked it through that message my son wrote, and back through the calendar. And there it hung, in front of the picture on the top half of the calendar. It's been January for months now, but I didn't care.

My youngest son made another message this morning for Fathers Day. He apparently stood on a chair to hang it with tape over the entrance to the kitchen. I chose to overlook that he stood on a chair like that. The message said "Happy Fathers Day. This message will explode, see the other side". So I looked at the other side and it said "BOOM!". I'm one of the grumpiest people on Earth until I have my coffee, but it made me laugh anyway.

I'm not going to extol the virtues of being a great dad, or give tips on good parenting, because frankly, I don't care what my coffee cup says, I'm not the best dad in the world. I'm not sure any dad really is. There is no dad school, or Phd in Fathering. If someone says they are an expert on parenting, I generally ignore them. 

What I can say about being a dad is it is a lot of fun sometimes. Besides the occasional moments when your kid shows in word or deed that they really love you or look up to you, they also can help you feel like a kid again. As many times as I've begged my wife, she just won't duel me with a plastic light saber, and it isn't cool for two grown men to do so in the front yard. But it is perfectly acceptable for a dad to have a light saber duel with his sons for all of the neighborhood to see.

And I always have two little accomplices whenever I want to play a joke on my wife. They are absolutely loyal and dedicated to the cause. Which is amazing, because as the dad, I am also the disciplinarian in the household. When they screw up, I'm the one that has to straighten them up. They were playing around last night in their room well after they were supposed to be asleep, and so I had to discipline them for it. I was thinking this morning, when they presented me with breakfast, that they might have spit in it, or put a bug in it. Surely they weren't too happy about my hollering at them the night before Father's Day.

But I didn't find any bugs, and it tasted fine. And they were eager to serve me and make sure I read their cards and that I liked the shirt they got me. They made it clear in every way two little boys can that they were celebrating my being their dad, the good and the bad and all of it.

I reckon I'm doing ok at this dad thing.