My Father’s Day

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and I celebrated it the whole weekend. Since I am in charge (sort of) at my job, I decided to work some extra hours the previous weekend, so I could have a nice 3 day weekend for father’s day. The best laid plans of mice and men….

Thursday night, the boys and I decided to camp out in the backyard. So, the first thing we did that afternoon was to pile dog, kids, and dad into the van and head down to Big Creek park to go swimming in the lake, and have a BBQ cook out. Upon arriving, my dog Rosie not only found the only pile of doggie poo on that whole beach, she promptly rolled around in it, too. Well after trying to wash her off in the lake (did I mention she is afraid of water?), she then rolled around in the sand and made matters worse. Oh, well, at least the kids were having fun. Oh, wait there’s Ryan swimming out into the middle of the lake. I didn’t know my 4 year old could swim????!!!! (He couldn’t, but he thought he could).

Ok, so after rescuing Ryan several times from certain doom, I decided I would get the charcoal started. But of course, that’s when I remembered that I had left all food, charcoal and matches at home. All I had brought was water, doggie food, and some grapes. Yummy.

Around 6:30 or so, the punks who were swimming next to us began to take swearing to a whole new level that impressed even me. (Not that I swear, but if you knew my family that would explain everything.) So I decided it was time to go before Ryan asked, “Daddy, what spells @#$& &# *#&$#*&???” (He is learing to read, so that’s his favorite question right now.) So we headed up to the outdoor showers to wash all the sand off of us before we got it all over our new van. As I am trying to get the squirming kids and manic depressive dog clean (I told you she hates water), about 3-4 beautiful and extremely scantily clad women come up to the showers and start using the ONE RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Never mind all the other ones they could have used. They were clothed of course, because this was an outside shower. But they all had to use the same shower head for some reason. And while I was busy trying to scrub some dogs poopoo off my dog, my boys decide the only natural thing to do would be to watch the girls in the next stall take their shower. And it seemed the ladies didn’t mind taking a shower with a 2 and a 4 year old watching them, mouths open. I decided to forget the poopy dog, and head back to the van. I toweled off the boys in the back of the van and changed them into clean clothes. Meanwhile, two kids parked in a truck right behind our van and started having a make out session that was quite impressive. Again, I would like to point out that there were plenty of other spaces open, so why park near my van with naked, wet, and sandy kids in the back? Also, why would you want to be in a parked car in 90 degree weather? NO ONE is that good of a kisser to suffer through that. And the parking lot didn’t even have a nice view. All you could see was the other parking lot.

Anyway, after that interesting introduction my boys had to the facts of life, we headed for home. I had planned to stop somewhere on the way home and get a bundle of wood to burn for our campfire that night. Of course, no one sells chopped wood anymore, so after several stops, we came home empty handed. However, all was not lost. Our landlord has a giant pile of branches in the back of our property that he has kept meaning to get around to burning, but hasn’t. So we used those for starting our fire, and after about 45 minutes of trying to start it, let alone keep it going, it finally got hot enough to slightly cook Ryan’s hot dogs, and to completely scorch mine, because I dropped it into the fire. Sammy, being the Rugged Outdoorsie Type, decided to be a man and eat his raw. Rosie ate a stick, and several leaves.

Well, after eating a few marshmellows, and singing some campfire songs like “Riding in my Red Wagon”, “Jesus Loves Me”, and “It’s Thomas’ Birthday Today” (that’s a song Ryan made up to the tune of the Thomas the Tank theme song), we decided to get into the tent. Now what would the odds be that our air mattress has a slow leak in it? Pretty good, apparently. So I pumped it full of air again, got the boys into their pj’s and in we went. Now I have what’s laughingly called a 3 man tent, because, you can supposedly put 3 men in it. You could if they were all around 5 feet tall and were REALLY good friends. So there we were crammed into our tent for a night of fun and camping. It smelled awful in there. Since moving into the country from the city, my boys have quickly adapted to the rural ways. They have “gone native”. Wereas before, Ryan would never want to leave the house with out having every square inch of his body covered in clothing, he now runs around outside, wearing only shorts and a smile. Both boys do this now. They are covered in scratches, dirt, bruises, and bug bites the size of dinner plates. And lets just say that that day was a particularly active day for them, so our tent smelled like stinky feet. I had the window flaps open, but I had to open the tent door a little bit to let some fresh air in. And that’s when the ritual of all campout’s began: passing gas in the tent. I think before it was over, all 3 of us contributed. And quite possibly we were all laughing about it. Sorry ladies, but I am 29 (almost) and I still find that funny. Don’t ask me why.

Sometime around midnight I think the boys finally started sleeping. At least they stopped talking and started thrashing. Sam kicked me in the armpits several times, and Ryan jerked in his sleep so violently that he flew across the tent and landed on me. Then the night life began. The neighboors dog (which is quite large) got into a fight with some kind of animal (which was quite small). It was some of the most viscious barking and fighting that I have ever heard, well, since my last family reunion. I think the dog actually ate whatever it was fighting with. So I, being the brave defender of the family that I am, decided stink or no stink, I was zipping the tent door closed. I didn’t want this dog’s blood lust to send him out looking for us.

Well, the next morning we woke up in several piles. The air mattress had lost most of its air, and since I was the heaviest, I was laying on the ground, which cause the remaining air in the mattress to be pushed over to the boys’ side. This made a nice little incline, which rolled them over on top of me. That was the first pile. The 2nd was a pile of a different sort. It smelled kind of bad in there, so I just thought someone had a dirty diaper, and it smelled worse because of the close quarters of the tent. Well, when I helped Sam out of his sleeping bag, I realized that he, the little trooper that he is, had had a blow out sometime during the night. And instead of telling me about, he had kept a stiff upper lip, and layed in it all night. There was “yucky stuff” all over his sleeping bag, legs, and clothes. His diaper was hanging half off, but he had a huge smile on his face as he told me “My poopy daddy!” No kidding. The sad part is, the was the best camping experience that I have had in awhile.

Well, flash forward to Sunday. After sitting through a nice Father’s Day message at church that made me feel guilty about how much better a dad I should be, I began to worry that I may not be quite up to this challenge of fatherhood. I am worried that my boys will grow up and not know what it means to be a Real Man. I picked Ryan up from his sunday school class, and he shows me a picture of three mice he colored for me. He had colored them all red, and different parts of the picture was red, too. He holds it up and says, “Look Daddy, I colored you this picture for Father’s Day. I colored them all red because they are BLEEDING! Hahaha!”

Well. Maybe I have done a few things right after all.