Fun with Fatherhood – Sick Day

Sick day. No fun, right? Well au contraire, I say.

My oldest son got sick at school yesterday. Stomach bug of some sort. That’s the bad news.

The good news is, it turned into an opportunity to make the best of the situation and resulted in some great one-on-one time with both of my sons in the past 24 hours.

He was asleep within minutes of getting here last night. The kid was exhausted, it had clearly been a long day for him.

So that meant time for me to hang out with my youngest son. I had him help me with dinner. He got to cut some of the ingredients (supervised, of course) and stir them into the pot, then help season the food. He did great.

After that, a quick game of hockey on  the PlayStation was followed up by both of us reading a shark book to each other (it was timely as my former home of South Carolina has been ‘stalked’ by a Great White just off the shore this past week.)

From there, we ended up watching an episode of ‘Here’s How’ and then a 20+ year-old rerun of ‘3-2-1 Contact’ on YouTube. I’d forgotten how great and informative that show was. Here’s a link to the user who has a number of these episodes available online. Looking forward to watching more of them with the boys.

My youngest son fell asleep and fortunately, my oldest slept through the night, only having to get up once. Unfortunately that was to be sick at 5 in the morning. So he wasn’t going to school today.

No problem, though. He may not have felt his best but he wasn’t feeling awful. So, we ended up spending the day talking about computers. I’ve always been a bit of a computer geek and he seems to be interested in them a lot, too.

He had his new laptop with him and I spent part of the day teaching him how to customize it and what to look for, etc. It was a lot of fun. He was really getting into it. I’m sure I was too.

Toward the end of the afternoon as we were getting ready to put the computer away my oldest son said, ‘Today was awesome.’

I gave him a hug and no doubt my smile was from ear to ear at that moment. He even threw in a ‘thank you’ for helping him set up his computer.

All in all, not bad for a sick day if you ask me.

Fun with Fatherhood

I had a great weekend with my kids.

It wasn’t anything ‘special’ in the sense that it didn’t involve grandiose plans or major events. We weren’t on vacation, we didn’t really have anywhere to be…but it was a lot of fun.

Simple weekends like this one remind me of how blessed I am to be a Dad and how much of a privilege it is to get to raise children.

We started off Friday evening with an exciting three-pronged shopping/errand run to the video store, the hardware store, and the grocery store. Not exactly riveting on the surface, but finding joy in the seemingly mundane routines of life is always nice.

I hadn’t been to a video store in a long time. I forgot how much fun it is to just browse around and see what’s there. I let the kids make one selection each, and I found a movie of my own. My oldest son picked Puss in Boots and my youngest son went with a video game.

We stopped at a playground near the grocery store and I chased them around for a while, before realizing 1) that I am out of shape and was out of breath and 2) that it was getting cold and dark outside.

The rest of the evening consisted of pizza and a movie. Logan was asleep within the first five minutes of it but my oldest son and I watched the whole thing. I enjoyed it. I think he did too.

Saturday started with a visit to a neighborhood garage sale. The boys walked away with a board game, a book, and two Halloween drink cups…with the total expenditure being less than three dollars. Can’t beat that. They like going to garage sales. The buying power for them is incredible at those things! 🙂

Swim lessons were next. After that, we headed to the library. An hour or so there led to us walking out with nine (mostly kids) books in our (see: my) arms. They raided the shelves!

From there it was off to our favorite spot in Peoria, thirty-thirty Coffee Co. We toasted to a good weekend together and took a look at our books for a bit. I think the boys feel sophisticated or something when they’re in there. Whatever it is, they always ask if we can go. I love the place anyway, so it’s a frequent stop for us.

The afternoon took us to a nearby park where we played an impromptu game of baseball using a grill as home plate, a picnic table as first base, and two trees as second and third bases. The boys beat me, courtesy of a big rally in the final inning. (I tried to help them out by making myself swing left-handed and only getting one out per inning.) Good times, and the dimensions of the ‘field’ were perfect! We’ll be back for sure.

I made them a healthier dinner that evening, which they devoured. (Swimming and playing baseball will burn a few calories.) Grilled chicken, vegetables, grapes, and whole wheat pasta.

The boys made forts to sleep in and after a second showing of Puss in Boots, which Logan again failed to come close to making it through, it was time to call it a night.

We got up early Sunday morning and went to the first service at church. It’s always hit or miss on making it to the 9 a.m. service, but we managed to pull it off this time. It was a great message this week and the kids enjoyed their youth service as well.

I treated the boys to lunch at a restaurant and we spent the rest of the afternoon at home relaxing and having fun.

Oh, I almost forgot our attempt to make brownies which failed miserably! The part in the middle as shown in the photo was the only part that was salvageable. I’m surprised the smoke alarm didn’t go off. Ah well. They didn’t seem to mind.

I’ll take them to school this morning and then the rest of the week will begin. It’s always bittersweet to see them go. As any parent can testify, it’s sad seeing them wave goodbye. But, it’s also wonderful to be able to see them off in the morning.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to be a father. I’m far from perfect at it but I really enjoy this part of my life. It’s not always glamorous and it can be hard work being a parent, but it’s so gratifying to be able to share in the lives of my children and to be able to watch them grow up.

Big smile here 🙂

Have a great day everyone.