Pictures for This Day

Winter break. This means that Kiernan goes with me on the morning walk of our puppy Honey. I instructed him to get dressed for the walk. This is the result.

Awesome. Totally takes after his dad when it comes to matching.

Picture for This Day

Not a great deal to say about this. Just look at that kid. He's eight years old.

We're leaving school. He's there, walking with his friend Jonah, who was coming home with us for an after-school playdate.

I just can't get over how old he looks. Look. Eight. Years. Old.

When did that happen?

Dad-tagonist

"Awww!"

We were touring Kiernan's classroom for back-to-school night, and up on the front wall, next to the main white board, we noticed a display of stories the students had written. Our eyes were immediately drawn to the one created by Kiernan (pictured). "My Dad." I guess that's me with the mustache and the stylish beret. So sweet!

Not so fast.

Below I present the complete text of the story dedicated to me entitled "My Dad" for your reading enjoyment.

I was having an awesome playdate with my cool, great, friends Gustavo and Milo. They came over to my house and said they wanted to draw.

I did too, but they changed their minds and I had to draw alone. Then, my dad came into the house and told me I had to play with them.

I walked to my room miserably and angrily, and I lay on my bed for the rest of the playdate (I was very frustrated).

When we got to last page we both burst out laughing. Not the heart-warming story we were expecting. It immediately struck a chord with me, however, because of how I value writing. Kiernan hasn't taken to writing yet, at least not in any meaningful way. It doesn't call to him. He can put together a good sentence and a good story, and has a great vocabulary, but given his druthers he would rather do math. Or just about anything else. Still, he took an annoyance to school and worked it out by writing about it. I can hardly bring myself to object to working out frustration in this way, seeing as this is one of the main ways I myself do it. Even if I turned out to be the antagonist in his story, I still love it.

And like any good antagonist, I see myself as the hero. I didn't tell him that though.

Because Dads Are Fun

[Please note: I started writing this post on the day before Father's Day. Kiernan's out of school now, so the editing has taken me a few days.]

We spent last night and a good part of Saturday in a hotel in Marina del Rey. Wendy was down there being her awesome self, presenting and training on collaboration. The folks that booked her for the gig put her up in a sweet room that included something called "Club Level Accommodations" and so she encouraged Kiernan and me to join her for the evening. Well, no thanks honey. We've been to Marina del Rey. It's like an hour away. Why would we want to drive down there on a Friday night? Whatever.

"Free food all day. Free wine and beer. Free candy. Free desserts. All you want."

Kiernan and I looked at each other and nodded. "Well, if it'll make your job easier, then we'll do it."

After about fifteen breakfasts--it really should be illegal to eat chocolate croissants and bagels with lox, capers, tomatoes, cream cheese, and red onions at the same seating...but it's not so HA!--father and son headed down to check out the pool. Headed down. Waddled down. Whatever.

Kiernan has become an amazing swimmer. I'll try to put up some pictures or videos of him at swim class in the next couple of days to show you what I mean. It really is astounding. But this post isn't about that, since as soon as we got down there he refused to swim until I joined him in the pool and then proceeded to spend the entire time pouncing on me and demanding I catapult him out of the water. Ugh. Really? I just want to sit and sip the cappuccino I brought from Club Level Accommodations. But noooooooo. I was about to raise an objection when Kiernan tossed me the Good Dad Handbook. Page 17 was dog-eared, and it clearly said, "When Dad's presence is requested in the pool he is to jump in without hesitation and allow his kid to pounce upon him at will." There is a provision in the appendix of the Good Dad Handbook that allows for him not to jump in immediately if he is playing a game that calls for his son to push him in. In case you were wondering.

Oh well. It was slightly overcast and a little chilly--this is down at the Pacific before the burnoff--but Wendy had assured me the pool was well heated. So...jump.

Yeeeesh! NOT well heated.

We set about to playing. "WHIRLPOOL!" Kiernan demanded. "OR EJECT!"

Whirlpool involves me taking hold of him as I stand in the water and spinning him around at a high velocity. Eject involves me throwing him in the air as high as I can so that he can then cannonball back down into the pool. Not that I have to explain these really. These are pool games played by fathers and sons through the ages. I Whirlpooled him a few times and Ejected him once or twice before I noticed something a little weird.

The little girl who'd been swimming at the other end of the pool was now very close to us. Uncomfortably close, actually. And smiling goofily. She didn't say anything, just smiled and then laughed a little. I tossed Kiernan into the air again, she laughed again, said "Sorry!" and then went swimming away.

We went back to playing.

She came back, and this time another girl who'd just arrived with a person I assume was her grandmother jumped in and came swimming right over, laughing with glee.

"Eject, Dad!" Kiernan exclaimed, not noticing the girls. Or ignoring them. "Come on! Eject!"

I threw him into the air again, and the new little girl beamed. "That's fun!"

I smiled at her but kept what distance I could, given that these two little kids had no sense of personal space whatsoever. Maybe this is true of most little kids, or maybe that shorts out when they get in the pool. I don't know, but I did hear her grandmother, reclined in one of the pool chairs behind me say the girl's name in that low cautious voice that says you're not really sure how to proceed with your kid in public. You want her to back off from the nice man, but you're not quite ready to say those words out loud.

Kiernan demanded Eject again, and I obliged. The new girl giggled again, and then she said something that knocked me off kilter for a bit.

"That's why I want a dad," she said, still beaming. "Because dads are fun!"

What the hell do you say at that point? I mean what the hell do you say?

Her grandmother wedged words into the gap for me, luckily. "Yes, but you have an uncle. Uncle Peebo will be here in a little bit."

"I know but--"

"Uncle Peebo will be here in a little bit," she said, her voice firming up. "He'll play with you in the pool when he gets here. Come here." The grandmother drew the little girl and her little friend to the other side of the pool.

Ignoring for a second that I haven't heard the name Peebo since the theatrical release of Beauty and the Beast (yes I know it's spelled Peabo), I felt so out of sorts at this moment. "That's why I want a dad." That's what she said. It wasn't a childish demand made with stamped foot. Not, "I want a dad!" said like Veruca Salt demanding a bean feast.  This was clearly something she had thought about, and probably discussed with grandma or somebody. The word "that's" at the beginning of the statement told me that. My mind reeled. What was her situation? Single mom? No parents? Two moms? What? Totally none of my business, even though she had tried her darnedest to make it so, but still...what?

And what should I have done? Invited her into our game? Of course not. That's not the world we live in, really. I've been in plenty of situations where strange kids glom onto me. It happens with dads all the time. You're goofing off with your son at the park and a couple kids run up and insinuate themselves without awkwardness into the game. Soon they are aping what your kid does, attacking or tackling you or whatever. But this was the hotel pool. I'm a strange man in a swim suit and she's a little girl. Dads are fun, but they're not crazy.

A few minutes passed and a new group of folks in swim suits made their way down the stairs to the pool. A woman about my age, a woman about half that, and two little boys. One about three and one, I don't know, maybe five. The five year old was clearly watching us, and smiling. He jumped right in and made his way over to us as Kiernan dunked me under the water. Then I ejected him once more.

The new little boy clapped. "That was great!"

I bowed, slapping the water theatrically with the backs of my hands.

"You're funny!"

"Landon," his mother said with that note of caution. "Come over here." Landon splashed away.

"Whirlpool, Dad." Kiernan had totally ignored the little girls, but he noticed the boy. I could tell by his tone. "Or eject. Whichever you want!"

Eject. Landon zipped back over, clapping again.

"Landon," his mother said again, that same tone. He ignored her this time. We continued to play while he stayed in orbit, acknowledging him without making actual contact. After several minutes of this his mom firmly called him over to the side, informing him that his little brother wanted to check out the jacuzzi and it was his turn and she couldn't be two places at once. He paddled over to her somewhat reluctantly and climbed out of the pool, heading up the stairs to the jacuzzi area.

"Sorry," his mom said to me. "He's used to our community pool where everybody just kind of...you know." She made a hand gesture that reminded me of packing a huge snowball, but I got what she meant.

"No worries," I said, waving off her apology. "I don't mind at all."

After a time up at the jacuzzi Landon dragged his family down to the pool again, jumping in and immediately paddling over to us. Kiernan invited him to help dunk me under the water. He gladly accepted the invitation and under I went. I spent a fair amount of time swimming away from the two of them, being chased, letting them catch me, and getting dunked under the water. Landon's mom called him over again, saying she wanted to take a picture to send to Landon's dad. It seemed to me she was making a point of bringing up Dad, making it clear to all that there was a dad in the picture. She then apologized again.

"Sorry! Landon's dad is in a meeting, so..."

"Again. No worries. No need to apologize."

She shrugged and smiled. "Moms are no fun."

"Not true," I disagreed pleasantly and turned to do Whirlpool again. Moms are plenty of fun. I've seen Kiernan have a ball with his mom. But when it comes to pools and roughhousing with your boy, I realized she did kind of have a point. She was wearing a bathing suit, and the thing was bone dry, and in a way this off-the-cuff statement was her way of proclaiming that it was going to stay that way. She had no intention of getting in the pool. Period.

I was immediately transported back to Pennsylvania, and summer visits to the little coal town where his folks all lived. I loved seeing my Bubba and Pap-Pap, and my cousins, but I was always champing at the bit to get to the pool. Aunt Doris had a pool and I was never so happy than when I was spending an entire summer day splashing around in it. Diving board. Water slide. Rafts and water toys aplenty. I loved that place. I have this memory of the pool space being excavated many, many years ago. In my memory the hole being dug seems impossibly big, and it follows that I remember the pool as fairly big, with a respectable deep end, but I'm sure as with most childhood memories this one is out-sized. No matter, the memory of the fun isn't.

Dad had to spend a certain amount of time chewing the fat with his sisters and their husbands, and those cans of Genessee beer they served weren't going to drink themselves, but I just have this strong sense memory that when I wanted him in the pool to play, he was in the pool to play. Splashing. Rating dives. Playing king-of-the-raft. Forcing me to swim him across the pool on piggy back and commanding in a goofy voice, "Fwim! Fwim!" I just remember hours upon hours of playing in the pool with my dad. So when my son demands I jump in the pool and play, how can I refuse?

Whether it be a day chock-full-of-swimming with my dad, or learning to ride horses and camp and hunt with my other dad, I have to look to that little girl's words and smile, her situation notwithstanding. Dads are fun. And this isn't just a fact...

It's a mandate.

Happy Father's Day, all.

Picture for This Day

A boy and his pup.

Tides of March

Pap-Pap was just here for a visit, thank goodness. We had a great time with him, as always, and not only because of all the home repairs that were consulted upon and completed. Although, I have to admit, that element of his visit was pretty great. We built a gate! And when I say "we" I mean I held a couple of boards and sunk a few screws and then when into the house and cooked a big pot of Italian Wedding Soup while my dad built a gate. It's a really cool gate.

Whenever Dad comes out to California he insists upon going to the beach for a meal. I like driving down to the ocean just fine, but I've never really understood his almost pathological need to do this every visit. Not only does he live in a state that is on a coast, his house is on the water. It's not like Dad and Sandi live in Nebraska. But, that's his thing, and it's a small thing to ask so we try to do it, which is good because it always turns out to be a good thing. Being near the ocean, even for a short time...I don't know, it's restorative.

I didn't think we'd make it down this time. The most convenient time for such an excursion is the weekend, but the weekend was full of other things. Spring soccer game. Birthday party. Friends of mine in town from Pennsylvania. To say nothing of the fact that we went into the weekend as a sick household. Saturday was a recuperation day after a week of knock-down colds in the house. I don't think a one of us got out of our pajamas all day long, and that includes my dad. Not that such a thing is odd for him, come to think of it.

Given that getting to the beach over the weekend was an impossibility, I figured it just would not be in the cards for Pap-Pap's visit this time. I knew he would be disappointed, but what could I do? We had house projects to accomplish during the day, and then had to pick up Kiernan from school and get him home for homework, soccer practice, dinner, bath, and bed. How exactly would a trip down to the Pacific work into that routine?

Oh shush. Just do it, said a little voice in my head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Wendy's. We--er...Dad--finished the gate just before we needed to pick up Kiernan on Wednesday, and I called an audible. "We're going down to Malibu after pickup," I told Dad. "We'll have an early dinner at a place we've never tried before." "Cool," he replied.

We picked up Kiernan and headed down to the Coast, to a little place in Malibu called Paradise Cove. I've been intending to check this place out for awhile now, so why not on this day? So Kiernan has to get his homework done. Why not do it down there?

Luckily because of some language assessments they're doing in school presently it's a light week for homework. Kiernan cleared his math homework and completed his daily log (an accounting of what went on that he discusses with his parents and we write down and turn in each day) while we waited for our food to come to the table. Then we had a lovely meal and headed out to the beach.

Paradise Cove is a cool little place. The food at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe was just okay. To quote my dad, "It's beach food." But the ambiance is perfect and the service was great, and if you look at the homework picture above you see that after eating you just get up from the table and walk out onto the beach. The place has this great combination of public and private. It wasn't hard to get to, or to get a table, and once you've got the validation from your meal your parking is covered for the next few hours. Of course it's a Wednesday afternoon in March, so I imagine the place is packed at other times. But even though we got in without a problem it still felt like we were in a private area because of the way the cove curves around. There is a feeling of seclusion. On one side is this pier, which was sadly closed for some reason or other, and on the other end is a huge cliff. Kiernan and Pap-Pap went down that way to explore and I let them have some time together while I sat and watched the ocean and let my mind wander for a bit.

That's a picture of the two of them emerging from around the edge of the cove. If you squint you can see them silhouetted there in the distance.

I used the word "restorative" in an above paragraph. I suppose I have to admit my dad has a point. His insistence that we get to the beach during his visits isn't just for him. Not only can the man build a damn fine gate, turns out he's also got a bit of wisdom to share as well.

We miss you Pap-Pap, and are grateful for your visit and to Sandi for making it happen.