It is better to give than it is to receive. Yes, yes this is true. But it is definitely easier to RECEIVE than it is to GIVE. Especially when your family won’t tell you what they want and it’s only … holy cow juice! … like a week until Christmas! Forget giving, I’ve got to start BUYING! But I’m stumped this year. It’s always hard, but it seems this year it’s been especially difficult to come up with ideas. Or pry ideas out of people. That includes my daughter, who turns 11 the day after Christmas. Maybe it’s a tough age — an age when toys of yesteryear don’t quite cut it. Instead, electronics and other big ticket items are more important. Conversations in my house sound like this now: Me: Child, why is your homework all over my desk?!? Child: Because I needed the computer for it AND I don’t have a computer OF MY OWN in my room … hint, hint, hint … Me: YOU’RE NOT GETTING A COMPUTER FOR CHRISTMAS!!! AND YOU’RE NEVER ALLOWED TO DATE BOYS!!!
Memories of waterparks
I have four distinct memories of going to waterparks as a child: 1) Nearly being drowned by a crush of friends in the deep end of the wave pool; 2) burning to such a crisp that I looked like a strip of bacon (and smelled like it, too;) 3) drinking no water, aside from what I swallowed while being drowned in the wave pool; and 4) putting my towel down on a beach chair and never — ever! — finding it again. I grew up in Tampa, and many weekends were spent at Adventure Island. My mother would drop my brother, me and a couple friends off with a towel, a glob of sunscreen to share and some wadded up money we were supposed to use for lunch. (We inevitably blew it at the arcade.) In summer, we lived at waterparks. In Florida you are required to attend waterparks. It’s the official state bird. But my daughter, now 10, had never been to one. (When you live close to the Atlantic Ocean, who needs fake waves?) So when we traveled to Orlando this past weekend so my wife could attend a conference, the two of us visited Aquatica, a waterworld filled with slides, wave pools, lazy rivers and tourists wearing odd bathing suits that leave nothing to the imagination.
Don’t snicker at the toddler
I was trying to fight it. Desperately attempting to suppress it. Making my best effort not to show it. But it came through. I couldn’t help it as we wandered like a pack of baboons through the Kennedy Space Center. My dad. My wife and our 10-year-old. My brother and his wife. And their nearly 3-year-old son, Striker. I just couldn’t help giving the “toddler stare of disbelief.” We all do it. Some people are mean about it. Others curious. Then there are people like me who can’t seem to remember having kids at that age. We give off a look that seems to say, “Is that normal?” It’s toddler denial complex — the belief that your child was never, ever that small, that energetic and that … well … kooky. That he or she came straight into the world refined, sipping tea, asking how the stock market was doing, able to stand perfectly still for more than 5 seconds and always saying, “Dear Papa, how may I make your life more enjoyable?”
Maybe it’s time we ban dads from back-to-school shopping
Dads shouldn’t be allowed to shop for back-to-school supplies. It’s a common fact. An unwritten rule. A law that some enterprising politician ought to propose. Everyone knows it. Dads know it. Moms know it. Poor little kids know it. Yet, every year, millions of dads still do it, and catastrophe unfolds. I speak from personal experience. I don’t say this in some macho, chauvinistic way. Like it’s below us or that real men should be out chopping wood instead of grabbing loose leaf paper. No, it’s more that we’re an impatient, easily-frustrated walking embarrassment to our family. And we don’t know a No. 2 pencil from a … well … a No. 3? I went with my wife and daughter shopping for school supplies the weekend before she started fifth grade. It wasn’t my cup of tea. The way I see school shopping: You grab a bunch of stuff and throw it in a basket. You have maybe a 50-50 shot some of it is what you need, but more importantly, you’re on the way home!
Big technology dreams for the future
What do kids dream about now? Like big future things. Things that make them sigh in bed at night and say to themselves, “If only I had a plutonium-powered homework eraser! That would do the trick.” I was thinking about this as I was buying a running hydration belt that would also carry my iPhone. (Hydration belt is code for “goofy runner gets parched and needs mini-canteens on his waist.”) Anyway, the belt needs to carry my iPhone so it will connect to my new heart rate monitor. That way I can see if my heart is still beating after I try to drink water on a long run and crash into a tree … or maybe a moving car. Anyway, it occurred to me that all the little things that I dreamed about as a kid – super-techy watches that know your location, communicators like on “Star Trek,” devices that allow video calls, little electronic pads that tell you everything you ever wanted to know, including your vital signs – are now reality. Commonplace. They’re here and we have them and even take them for granted.
Those summer beach things that we Floridians know
Every Memorial Day Weekend two things happen: I remember those who served and sacrificed for our country. It’s the meaning of the holiday. But then I inevitably traipse off to the beach with family in tow and am reminded of what it means to be a Floridian as summer sets in. It’s the weekend when we Floridians emerge from our cocoons and rediscover a world filled with sun, sand, waves and incredible tans that make us look like coconut-scented gods. And it’s all thanks to the time-honored tricks of the trade we’ve learned from living in a tropical paradise. As I sat on the beach this past weekend, I pondered the rules we know as residents of this sun-drenched state. • Rule #1 – Ice cream always dies a tragic death at the beach. On average, it only takes 3 seconds to wilt a Rocket Pop. Which is why the only time to eat it is at 9:30 in the morning. That’s what the smart Floridians do. It’s the only way to protect your expensive investment. “Dad, can I have an ice cream?” my daughter asked. “It’s 10 a.m.!” I replied. “Why’d you wait so long? You shouldn’t have wasted time brushing your teeth this morning.”
The (kind of) complete mountain essentials guide
To buy a first aid kit, or not to buy a first aid kit? That is the question. The eternal question. I mean, what would it say about me? No longer will I be the kind of dad who when faced with a child sporting a bleeding wound tears off a sheet of paper and says, “Here! Hold this on it until the bleeding stops.” That’s fatherhood at its best right there. (Forget whether it’s hygienic.) But if I buy this travel first aid kit, I will suddenly be prepared and ready for all calamity in a smart, reasonable and remarkably mature way. Is that who I am? My family is heading to Colorado soon. The mountains! We plan to do a lot of hiking and outdoorsy stuff, which has me thinking about all the essentials to bring. The things I could potentially need. And the things I just want an excuse to buy: Like the knife that Indiana Jones had. Imagine explaining that one to airport security!
Mining for Minecraft Mods
Excuse me if I seem a little tired. I was up late again last night, desperately trying to load a new Mod into Minecraft. What’s a “Mod?” Well, I’m glad you asked … because I have no earthly idea. Could stand for “modification.” Possibly. Or “my obedient dad,” as in, “My obedient dad is going to stay up all night pulling his hair out while trying to load this thing onto my computer game.” It’s anyone’s guess. My daughter has become a maniac for Minecraft, that video game that lets players construct whole worlds and travel through them while whaw, whaw-whaw, whaw, whaw. (I don’t actually know what Minecraft is all about, as I tend to tune out when she explains it.) What I do know is that everything looks like it’s made of square blocks — the land, the people, the animals, the buildings. “Oh, look how cute,” my daughter will say. “It’s an ant!” I strain my pixel-challenged eyes and say: “No, it isn’t! It’s six black squares walking around. These graphics are terrible!”
A newswoman in the family
“You’re going to be a newscaster!” I blurted out, beaming with pride. I had just been told something that will warm the heart of any former journalist: My daughter had earned a spot on her elementary school’s crack morning news crew. She gave me the kind of 10-year-old look that screams: “Why do I tell you ANYTHING?” But I just can’t help it. It’s so exciting! I’ve never actually seen the show. I think it comes on for morning announcements and is broadcasted to TV sets in the classrooms throughout her school. There’s an anchor and a camerakid and cue cards and the whole lot. I picture a “60 Minutes” format with exposés on why the hand-dryers in the bathroom don’t dry your hands quicker. Or maybe tough interviews with the physical ed teacher about why Medieval torture techniques like sit-ups are still being inflicted on children. “Now, in our research, we found a child in Nebraska who snapped in half while doing these archaic exercises. How do you respond to this?”
Full-on vacation planning … like the old days
When I was little, my father, brother and I used to trek off to the Rockies for long, extended vacations during the summer. We spent most of our time camping, hiking, eating questionable stuff out of tin cans, listening to questionable comedians on cassette tapes, chasing chipmunks and generally being awed by the monstrous beauty of a range of mountains that had erupted from the earth. As Florida boys — where elevation was measured by how high your front porch was — it was a dizzying sight to behold. Behemoths topping out at 13,000 feet, or more. In Durango, we two little kids and our bearded father would board the narrow-gauge Durango & Silverton Railroad with nothing but hiking packs and a couple of hiking sticks. We would sit amongst the sightseers as smoke-stack ashes rained down on us and the train crept deeper and deeper into the mountains. At some point it would come to an abrupt stop in the middle of a lonely gorge. Off we would hop, grabbing our packs and sticks from the freight car as puzzled tourists hung out the windows watching us, saying things to each other like, “Look Martha, that strange man is leading his two children off to be eaten by bears. We’re going to read about this in the newspaper!” Then we would disappear up the pass as the sounds of the huffing train echoed through mountains and slowly chugged away. We would camp near a beaver den and spend the next few […]