A regular conversation with my Son
That's my son, playing shortstop in the ever-competitive T-Ball league. That's me behind him, coaching our team. It's a scanned picture, so it's not the highest quality, but it's one of my favorites.
This is part two (or three…I lose track) of my “Daddy” posts as I just started calling them a few minutes ago. Kids never cease to amaze me, or even teach me things that I never saw coming. I started blogging a few months ago, and I found out that it’s an easy way to let some of my real feelings out. Being a man, it’s sometimes hard for me to express my real feelings or let them show, but while blogging you can hide behind the pen….or in this case, the keyboard….who writes with a pen anymore? Anyway, on to the latest:
Two Saturday’s ago it was just me and my 6 ½ year old son. So, I asked him what he wanted to do. Apparently, he saw a commercial for a new Shrek game on Playstation so he wanted to rent it and play it. So we headed out to the Movie Gallery and picked it up. It’s a one player game, so we mostly just sat together while he played, and I helped him through some of the hard parts. The game was fun, but that wasn’t what was important to me, it was our conversations. How many in-depth conversations have you had with your children? Not a Father-Son conversation, more like Friend-to-Friend conversation? It was the most fun and eye-opening moment I’ve had in a long time. He was talking to me about baseball, swimming, and many other subjects. He had a hard time finishing off one level, so I took over and ended up doing this really cool move (totally by accident) to defeat the level. He looked at me and said “Nice move Dude!” and then gave me a high five. I started laughing after that…first time he ever called me Dude….then he started laughing because I was. After a minute, he stopped laughing and he asked me why we were laughing….priceless.
He just finished up his third year of playing baseball, so I asked him to tell me what he thought about it, if he had fun, and why he likes playing. He told me it was fun, because he likes winning! He also told me it was fun because I was coaching and he liked being out there with me. I told him I wouldn’t always be his coach, because as he gets older and continues to play, he will have different coaches. He told me “It’s okay, I’m getting older now so I think I can handle it, but I want you there to watch me.” I told him I wouldn’t miss it for any reason…not one pitch, not one at-bat. I then asked him about Football, he is finally old enough to play and he will start in a few weeks. It’s a Flag football team, he isn’t old enough for a tackle league yet. He’s very excited about this, although he was a little confused about it at first. He asked me “so do we all just race for a flag, and whoever gets it scores a touchdown?” Again….priceless. So I then explained to him that instead of tackling each other, you have to pull a flag that hangs out from their waist. He thought about it for a minute and then said “then can I tackle him?” I told him that there would be no tackling this year, but if he liked it, he could play again next year and be old enough to be in a tackle league.
After that conversation was over we had a very in depth conversation of “Teen Titans vs. Shrek”. He’s a huge fan of Robin from Teen Titans and went into a very detailed description of how Robin, although smaller, could defeat Shrek. He has a very imaginative and creative mind, and it really showed through this story.
Sure, we spent many hours playing that game that day, and we of course defeated the Mighty Prince Charming. But the thing that made that day really special, was just the time we spent talking with each other, father to son, and friend to friend.
Two Saturday’s ago it was just me and my 6 ½ year old son. So, I asked him what he wanted to do. Apparently, he saw a commercial for a new Shrek game on Playstation so he wanted to rent it and play it. So we headed out to the Movie Gallery and picked it up. It’s a one player game, so we mostly just sat together while he played, and I helped him through some of the hard parts. The game was fun, but that wasn’t what was important to me, it was our conversations. How many in-depth conversations have you had with your children? Not a Father-Son conversation, more like Friend-to-Friend conversation? It was the most fun and eye-opening moment I’ve had in a long time. He was talking to me about baseball, swimming, and many other subjects. He had a hard time finishing off one level, so I took over and ended up doing this really cool move (totally by accident) to defeat the level. He looked at me and said “Nice move Dude!” and then gave me a high five. I started laughing after that…first time he ever called me Dude….then he started laughing because I was. After a minute, he stopped laughing and he asked me why we were laughing….priceless.
He just finished up his third year of playing baseball, so I asked him to tell me what he thought about it, if he had fun, and why he likes playing. He told me it was fun, because he likes winning! He also told me it was fun because I was coaching and he liked being out there with me. I told him I wouldn’t always be his coach, because as he gets older and continues to play, he will have different coaches. He told me “It’s okay, I’m getting older now so I think I can handle it, but I want you there to watch me.” I told him I wouldn’t miss it for any reason…not one pitch, not one at-bat. I then asked him about Football, he is finally old enough to play and he will start in a few weeks. It’s a Flag football team, he isn’t old enough for a tackle league yet. He’s very excited about this, although he was a little confused about it at first. He asked me “so do we all just race for a flag, and whoever gets it scores a touchdown?” Again….priceless. So I then explained to him that instead of tackling each other, you have to pull a flag that hangs out from their waist. He thought about it for a minute and then said “then can I tackle him?” I told him that there would be no tackling this year, but if he liked it, he could play again next year and be old enough to be in a tackle league.
After that conversation was over we had a very in depth conversation of “Teen Titans vs. Shrek”. He’s a huge fan of Robin from Teen Titans and went into a very detailed description of how Robin, although smaller, could defeat Shrek. He has a very imaginative and creative mind, and it really showed through this story.
Sure, we spent many hours playing that game that day, and we of course defeated the Mighty Prince Charming. But the thing that made that day really special, was just the time we spent talking with each other, father to son, and friend to friend.
2 comments:
great post. I love those moments when parenthood crosses over into conversations of life. I appreciate your blog, sharing you with us.
Thanks. It's nice to capture all this in writing and be able to look at it later. I'm glad I started blogging!
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