Category: Adventures in being a dad

Field of Dreams?

I took my son to a Doyer game. We went and joined his school crowd. At one point bought some hot dogs and lots of unhealthy snacks and then it made sense why I ain’t getting my figure back.
We both stayed past our bedtime and just before I went to sleep I felt some guilt of having consume 10s of hundreds of calories so late in the evening. Finally at one point I headed off to dreamland.
It was much later in the evening, I think, I returned back to Dodger Stadium. The crowd was much bigger than I remember and now I stood on the actual field with busy people zipping around me, the flood lights starting to kick on and a clock counting down to something. Then a pretty young Latina woman came at me with a microphone in her hand. My instinct to turn on a smile and face the camera towed behind her sparked. I couldn’t understand her words but somehow I understood that a big honor was being bestowed upon me and then she handed me a pristine white ball with red stitching all around me.
Time passed and now I was on the pitcher’s mound. The crowd was roaring me on and I psyched myself and body to toss that first pitch as hard as possible.
All a sudden one person in the crowd of thousands started to snicker. Then another and then a few dozen. The dozen laughs caused a reaction and now hundreds of people we laughing and pointing. They were pointing at me.
The night had turned cold and I looked down at my outfit and I now stood in my just underwear in front of thousands of people. My skinny legs were showing the big screens at the stadium and it dawned on me there were to somewhere in Television sets around the country. All over the world people laughing at me. I could hear them.

My body jolted and I woke up in a sweat. My heart was still beating hard and it took me a second to get my bearings. Once the panicked subsided I took a second to go check in on my still sleeping boy. 
He seemed called and happy in dreamland. Or was he?

Dad Aid

So there I was this morning trying hard to ignore the unusual cacophony coming from other rooms in my house and trying to stay on schedule. Just as I was drafting one of a series of important emails to a client and was thinking of the words I’d say to the next one I heard the cautious footsteps of my youngest approaching my desk. 
She then preceded to tell me that her brother had cut himself in the leg. I braced for what was next. Sure enough when I found him in a ballerina pose there we blood at midway up his tibia in two distinct places and I winced. 
My job as a dad though is to clean, treat, scold and hug. I did all those and as I placed the last Band Aid on the kid and asked them to be more careful I had a flashback of me as a boy with a gash on my leg after some street-football on Eastman Ave in East LA.

Hooters

Because we believe in being a conduit of valuable and relevant information to our children…Momma Torres and I just spent the balance of our car ride back from West Covina explaining the theme of the Hooters restaurant off the side of the road. 
For the time being both Torres have opted to not frequent the establishment much to the dismay of this reporter.

A Failed State

Sometimes when I think about my posts I wonder what my children may come to think of them. I hope they’ll smile, a few may make them think but I have a feeling they’ll just roll their eyes a lot. Either way my hope is that they’ll will come to concur with my descriptions of love for them, my wife, our friends, the house, ye olde neighbourhood, the mutts and chickens. 
I will consider it a failed life if the person delineated on the screen is far far different from the man who was their real life dad.

Sleepless in Monrovia

I find myself barely holding on after a very long night of struggle. Cold and frustrated I realize that I am solely responsible for the choices I made yesterday. I hope this confession serves as warning to others and as I think of my wife now sleeping on the couch I hope to have learned my lesson. But I’ve done this before and since past is prologue I fear this may happen again.
The YouTube is full of scary videos about Chupacabras, Big Feet, ghosts in photos, Jersey Devils, Slender Men, Dutch peole and more. Watching these creepy-pastas with the kids is a sure way to have a rebellion based on fears at bed time. We acquiesced and let them sleep in hours. Trying to share space with two kids and two dogs is no fun and I spent most the night moderating groggy disagreements over imaginary borders, shifting confused mutts about and seeing my wedge of the bed shrink and shrink and shrink.

I’d carp more but only have myself to blame.

Make a Wish

As I half-patiently waited at my front door for my youngest to gather up her school stuffs my oldest started to make his way up the street.  
He seemed so resolute as he walked past the threshold of our property and towards the foggy foothills to the north. My first instinct as always was to tell him to wait but his stride told me that he was okay to go and so I watched him. My youngest took longer then usual but finally she darted out and as started to catch up to my boy up ahead I saw him kneel at a neightbour’s yard and pick up a dandelion or two. He was making wishes. 
Hopes that I didn’t feel i needed to inquire about or perhaps I was making my own wish and that’s that he would stay young like this just a little more longer.

Cock of the Walk

Woke up late again today because I could. 
After a generous helping of sausage and coffee I decided to step outside and enjoy the morning while the kids & their friends finished the rest of the Scooby Doo movie. My girls rushed at the first sound of my footsteps and in an instant I had them surrounding me and my warm mug. I greeted each one with love and they chirped right back at me. I felt rather cocky as they seem to make a fuss about me. 
That was until until the Road Island Red hen started pecking at my back while I sat and that reminded me that they needed more treats, their coops needs some repair before the rain and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I went shopping for more feed. 
Somehow now I have more chores to do and I’m afraid to walk into my home. I may find more to-do assignments therein.

Freaky Fractions

Fractions caused friction on our daily walk back from school. 
For some reason, I could NOT wrap my mind around how my youngest figured what went on the denominators place from the number of pie wedges on her little homework sheet. I lost her of course when I intimated that her teacher might be wrong. She curtly pointed out that her instructor went to college and taught for a living. I then called the kids’ mother-dearest for some parental back-up but the backstabber didn’t see it my way and sided with the children. 
Freakin’ fractions fried my brain and now I feel like the dumb kid in class again.