Dear Mom you know what?

Dear Mom you know what?

Something you did for me that I did not take for granted, even though I am not sure if I truly appreciated it. Whenever I was leaving you would say “I love you.” I would always answer, “I love you too.” There were many random times during the day, where you would say, “I love you.” I never surmised a pattern, but I always figured there was one. “I love you,” was a substitute for a lot of things. It could easily replace “Thank you,” or “nice job,” I even recall it being used instead of “that is not funny.” Though the tone in that instance was quite different.

It was no surprise that when I fell in love with someone I would want to tell them. And tell them a lot. I remember the first time I wanted to say “I love you” to someone. I didn’t, in fact I resisted a lot of times before I finally got around to meaning and saying it, all at the same time. Once you find someone to say “I love you,” you want to say it all the time. I would find myself calling in the middle of the day, for no other reason than to say, “I love you.” Too bad text messaging did not exist back then, I would have used it a lot.

At some point, and I am not sure of the reason, I tried to break myself of saying, “You know what?” People over use that phrase. It really means, “Hey, are you paying attention?” To encourage my elimination of the term, every time I said “you know what,” to my girlfriend, after she answered “what,” I would follow it with, “I love you.” It got to be kind of a game. I was surprised how often I said, “you know what.” Sometimes we would driving somewhere and I would turn to her as she was watching the road and driving. “You know what?” I would say. Sometime she would answer automatically and say, “what?” But sometimes she would know what I was about to say and smile very big, then say “what?”

It was the perfect thing to break the silence. When you are staring into each other’s eyes and there is this long pause. “You know what?” “What?” “I love you.”
Years after she had left and other girls had come and gone I realized I did not say “You know what” anymore. I most certainly never used it again on another girl. That would have somehow dirtied it, or turned it into a line, instead of the sincere expression that it always was. There were other lines. There were other little things, but none of them were ever as poignant as “You know what, I love you.”

When Claire started talking she picked up “you know what” somewhere. I would always answer, “No, but I know Who, plays on the same team as him.” Claire still has no idea what I am talking about. Someday she will see the old comedy routine of Who’s on first by Abbot and Costello and figure it out. “OH! That’s what he meant!”

However, early on, I found myself saying, “you know what?” 99% of the time she just says “What?” Then I say, “I love you.” I say “I love you” all the time. It replaces “thank you,” “good job,” “don’t worry we can clean that up,” and any number of other things. And of course it always comes after the phrase, “you know what?”
A few times Claire has, completely out of the blue, said “you know what Daddy?” and she says it in a way that does not mean, “hey, are you paying attention?” Each time I have had the presence of mind to not say “no, but I know Who, plays on the same team as him.” Instead I just say “what?” Each time I have been rewarded with an enthusiastic “I love you!” and a big hug.

She will never wonder if her daddy loves her. And with any luck she will never wonder about anyone else as well. But I can do little for that, other than to prepare for one day when she meets someone and the only thing she can think of saying is “you know what?”

I love you,

Mike

Dear Mom it’s a snow bunny

Dear Mom it’s a snow bunny

It snowed on the first day of Spring. Claire would have spent the entire day playing in it. Just when I get her to the point where she does not have chapped lips, it snows again. The snow stuck pretty well but it was too fluffy and would not roll well into a big snowball. So, we spent a lot of time packing it into place and trying to get it to look like a snowman. It started to look a lot like a mouse, then the mouse ears started to look a lot like rabbit ears. Next thing you know we are building a snow bunny.

I was very tired of the snow. I mean, snow again? Really? Could we read a book? Could we watch a movie? How about a game? No? It was snow.

Long ago I knew this girl. She lived somewhere that didn’t get snow. You probably remember when she visited at Christmas. It snowed. It was a pretty big deal to her. I live in the Midwest, it snows here every year. Sometimes it snows a lot, like this year. Playing in the snow was never a high priority for me. And when I was in those days it was not even on my list of things to do. With a beautiful woman visiting, I was thinking about dinner, a movie, cuddling on the couch, I was thinking about a lot of things. I was not thinking about bundling up and playing in the snow. But, it was important to her so I did it. She made a little snow bunny. I was not sure if it was her first snowman, but it might have been. It was really more of a sculpture. Very cute, with its ears and everything. I threw a snowball at it and knocked an ear off. The look on her face might very well have changed me forever.

I still feel guilty about it to this day. I was probably transparent. I was feigning interest in building a snowman and was really thinking, “are we done yet?”

She probably just wrote it off as me being a guy. It was a great visit. She cried when we said goodbye at the airport, I cried when I drove home from the airport.

There is a point when you are doing something, that you decide it is fun. It is a complex formula of risk versus reward, time value for your money, emotional investment and many other things. Some people don’t seem to enjoy anything. Some seem to enjoy everything. I don’t enjoy everything but I have found great joy in being a part of other people’s happiness. Something about it being fun for them makes it fun for me too.

I was thinking about that while we were standing in the cold with the snow falling, building our snow bunny. I was having a great time. Somehow along the way I learned when someone’s happiness is more important than your own, you do not have to sacrifice to make them happy. Not if you can grab the brass ring and be happy with them.

I know for a fact that one moment all those years ago and that expression on her face, I still remember, has lead to many wonderful experiences in my life. Somehow that revelation has made me a better daddy.

Love Mike

Dear Mom I want to ride my bike

Dear Mom I want to ride my bike

Last year for Claire’s birthday I got her a bicycle. It was a pink Barbie bicycle. It had a little bicycle that was attached to your handlebars where your Barbie could ride with you as you peddled around the park. Claire was delighted when she got it. It was just like on TV.

“When can we go ride my bike?” She would ask me. We live on a big hill and our driveway is pretty steep. Not a good place for a kid to ride a bike. But, as a stay at home dad, we made daily trips to the park, or really any number of parks. There was the penguin park, which may actually be called Penguin Park, because it had a giant penguin in it. If it was not named Penguin Park that was surely what everyone called it. At least everyone I knew. There was the castle park, which was not named castle park, it was Harris park, or the old Miller park but it had a jungle gym in it that had castle shaped parts so Claire called it the castle park. There was the pirate ship park. There was not a pirate ship there, nor was there really anything that looked like a pirate ship, but once Claire and I had played pirate there and pretended one of the climbing things was our ship, so it was forever known as Pirate Ship Park.

Today, that was our destination. We put her bike in the back of the truck and took off toward Lowenstein park, err, Pirate Ship Park. As I unloaded the bike she was at my feet the entire time. As I moved toward the sidewalk she was almost clinging to my leg. Placing the bike on the path she was quickly astride. It was higher than her tricycle and I had adjusted the seat to the lowest setting so she could reach the ground. There, astride her new pink Barbie bike the world was her oyster. She adjusted the Barbie on her bike and adjusted the chin strap on her helmet and carefully put her feet on the pedals and… That was it. She was sitting on her bike, helmet and all and she was not moving. Somehow just sitting on it was enough.

“Push the pedals,” I encouraged.

She started to move a bit and a look of terror came over her face. I reached out to hold the bike. It was not really falling over, nor did I think it was even possible, the training wheels had a pretty broad stance. But it seemed to calm her down, knowing daddy’s hand was there to protect her.

“I can do it!” she yelled at me. This was her way of saying don’t push me, I can peddle, but please don’t let go, because I feel safer with you holding onto the bike.
So with me holding her bike we started up the path. There was a long hill and I pushed just a bit to help her get going, not enough she would notice I was doing all the work but enough so she had forward motion. When we reached the top of the hill there was a broad level spot where she actually peddled under her own power for almost 30 feet. Then the downhill portion came into play and I found myself holding onto the back of the bike to prevent it from going too fast.

Now, too fast is a subjective term. For me, too fast would have been faster than I can run, for her too fast was, well, moving. For some reason, faced with the long downhill slope she was terrified. Though I held tight to the back of the bike as we moved at a pace slower than a slow walk, she dismounted and decided it was better to walk.

As we got to the bottom of the hill she shed her helmet and went to play on the gym. I parked the bike by a bench and waited for her to return. There were a few kids there, and Claire never met a stranger so she was quickly playing pirate or ice cream shop or whatever other game they dreamed up. She did not return to the bike. In fact after a long while I had to tell her it was time to go.
“Do you want to ride your bike again.”

“Not right now Daddy.” Then she tugged on my hand as if her small frame could coax me back to the playground and stay another hour.

“It is time for dinner.” I told her, “Aren’t you hungry?”

Pushing the bike with one hand and dragging my daughter with the other we made our way back to the truck. Only stopping for a moment for the mandatory drinking fountain pit stop that usually left her covered in water. It was not entirely her fault, the drinking fountain was a bit wild.

“Did you have fun riding your bike today?” I asked as we drove home.
“Yes.” She answered though I wondered exactly what part of riding her bike she remembered.

This was our Summer. A few times a week we would go to the park and ride our bike for 10 or 15 minutes then spend the rest of the afternoon on the playground. She never did start riding it on her own.

Over the winter she asked me a few times, “Daddy, where is my bike?”
“It is in the garage sweetie, we will get it out when it gets warmer.”
I am waiting with anticipation to see how she will ride her bike this year. Will she really ride it? Armed with a year of kindergarten under her belt will it not seem so high and will downhill not seem so fast?

In the back of my mind, I think it will be a bit different. I imagine her riding her bike alongside me as I run. That would be a nice thing, I could get my daily run in and she could ride along side. I suspect it may be another year before that happens, but it is nice to dream.

Once we tackle riding the bike I suppose it will be time to learn to swim. Maybe I should stick with the bike for the moment, I may be getting ahead of myself.

Love Mike