When faced with a parenting dilemma I seldom fall back those parenting books filled with time honored suggestions. The fact that I’ve never had any interest in reading them says more about me than the books.

For better or worse, I trust my instincts.

Last night was one of moments where my instincts told me to chill out, have a seat and shut up. My son attended a scouting activity and expected to be presented with an advancement. But it wasn’t to be. Although he’ll be honored next month, he was crushed. He worked hard to pass off the last few requirements, the last of which was building a birdhouse.

When the pack meeting was over, I tried to cheer him up, but the right words escaped me. I don’t know that there was anything I could say to console him. If there was, I was not tuned in to receive them because my thoughts were focused on locating someone to blame. 

As we drove home I thought about how I was going to fix the problem. My son was upset. Someone dropped the ball and I wanted them to understand how that must feel to a 9 year old boy, who had done everything he was supposed to. Very little was said on the drive home. I didn’t want to make things worse by forcing small chat on him.

As we got out of the car, I asked “Would you like to play racquetball with me tomorrow night?”

He’s never played before. But he loved taking tennis lessons this summer, and I figured it would take his mind off the evening. I located my old racquet in the garage and we practiced hitting balls off the wall calendar before mom arrived home, and could put a stop to it.

When I awoke this morning I considered shooting off an email to the leader explaining how hurt my son felt. Doing so would have made me feel better, but it wouldn’t change anything. The meeting was over and my son would have to wait another month.

When I was my son’s age, I participated in the scouting program to the degree that it didn’t interfere with baseball or basketball. Often, it did interfere which was fine with me because the idea of sleeping in a tent, cooking meals over a fire and wearing a uniform sounded about as fun as a haircut.

My son met me at the door when I arrived home from work. We gathered our equipment and headed to the gym where we played racquetball together for an hour. Other than the time he learned to solve the Rubik’s Cube I’ve never seen him happier. When he hit the ball into my stomach and couldn’t stop laughing I knew my son was back.

I didn’t focus another second on what he gone wrong the night before, because it no longer mattered.

When I was 12 years old, sports was all I cared about. I didn’t matter what I played as long as someone was keeping score. We had the best basketball court in the neighborhood so the boys would drop by to practice I’d challenge to a game of H-O-R-S-E.

It didn’t matter if they were older or stronger than I was, I would take them on. I spent hours shooting one shot from the street that was my ace in the hole. From the spot, which was slightly elevated, the hoop blended into the mountains making the basket seem further away than it actually was. During the summer months I’d practice a hundred shots from that spot and count how many I made.

Have you ever played someone at H-O-R-S-E who has one annoyingly accurate shot? That was the street shot. When the older kids thought they had me on the ropes, I’d reel off four or five straight from the street.

 

One friend got so frustrated after I beat him by one letter that he kicked my basketball down the street. I ran after after it giggling which made him even more upset.

My strategy worked until my brother decided to perfect “the grass shot” which was a totally illegal, out of bounds baseline shot I couldn’t knock down if my life depended on it.

I bring this up because I’ve watched my two sons compete with each other lately. Lincoln is patient, and although he’s competitive with himself, he doesn’t exhibit the outward competitiveness I see in my youngest son, Kai. Lincoln would rather teach himself how to solve the 7×7 V-Cube than hustle sodas from the neighbors.

A couple of years ago this bothered me. I couldn’t imagine having a son who’s ambivalent towards athletics.  When Kai smacked a baseball into our neighbor’s yard this summer I couldn’t have been happier. Finally, I had my son who was into sports!

Yet as I spend time with Lincoln, I see traits that make me proud, on or off the court. He is far more patient and thoughtful than I was at his age. He’s analytical where I was impulsive. He’s probably a much better friend than I was too.

For Christmas Lincoln got a small RC helicopter. A few days later I decided to buy one too with the idea that we could spend time together, learning to fly our helicopters. I’ve been practicing while he’s at school, thinking I’d improve my skills to the point where I could share what I’ve learned with my son.

That was my thinking anyway until tonight. After I crashed my copter into the piano and ceiling fan, Lincoln took the control pad from me and piloted his way around the room without a crash.

And then he did something I wasn’t expecting. He circled the room again, but this time he did it backwards. The copter coasted back towards him until he gently landed it onto his open hand.

“That’s how you do it, Dad”

He just swished one from the street.

2011 came to a close for me squished between my kids while we watched the fireworks at the Space Needle on an air mattress that was slowly losing air. The safety tag warned against using the mattress as a floatation device, and I understand why.

It was a fitting end to a year that I’ll remember most for the amount of time I spent with my children. I don’t know when it hit me how lucky I am, but it may have been the morning my daughter left her lunchbox at home, and didn’t realize it until we were at the bus stop.

For a split second I thought about lecturing Anna. About how it’s not my job to make sure her homework is tucked inside her backpack. How maybe if she’d spend less time selecting an outfit, she’d have more time to make sure she had everything she needed, including her lunch box. Behind all that pseudo fatherly advice was fact that it was simply a personal inconvenience to the driver.

In the time it look me to turn the van around and head back home to retrieve the lunchbox, I realized how most fathers would love to be in my position. I get to see my kids run towards the van each morning in various stages of readiness. Backpacks a size too large are dragged across the driveway. Jackets seldom match the season . Some mornings I’m convinced Anna got herself dressed in a pitch black cave.

But none of that matters.

This year I got to see my children every morning. It’s a view into a slice of their day that, until last year, was not part of my day because my commute was over an hour each way. I stirred chocolate milk for them, buttered toast and hung around long to figure out which flavor of Pringles each of them prefer.

In the past I’ve told myself that I was providing for my family. That a long commute or travel requirements were just part of the job, but that I’d make it up down the road. I nearly began to believe the lie myself.

It took losing my job to realize I was losing touch with my children. I left before they were awake and often returned home well after dinner.  My free time started after they were in bed.

And that’s what I’ll take from 2011. A loss turned into a gain for me and my children.

Having to go back home to retrieve a forgotten lunch isn’t such a bad thing either because it gives me a few more minutes to listen to Anna’s wacky jokes.

Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but it’s not easy to watch when it does.

I’m talking about watching my kids line up in the garage to wave goodbye to their grandparents who are headed back to Utah.

Our two oldest children are old enough to remember what it was like living close to family which we did for a year before moving back to Seattle. The two youngest children assume all grandparents live a thousand miles away and getting to see them is something that happens twice a year.

The kids count down the number of days to their next visit as if it were a more important occasion than Christmas, which of course, it is. When their grandparents are in town, the kids do everything they can to coax a few extra days out of them. Sometimes it works.

When we drop my father off at the airport after a short visit, the kids are a wreck for hours. They love when he visits, but the goodbyes are painful. As a father, those are difficult tears to wipe away.

Tonight the goodbyes played out to a backdrop of cold rain falling against an angry sky. My in-laws said their goodbyes before slowing backing down our driveway in their new Prius.

I stood back and wondered how long till the rain turned to snow and those energetic waves turned to tears.

As the weekend began to wind down this afternoon I considered all the tasks I didn’t accomplish.

I planned to hang a rack in the garage to hold the kids bike helmets. Or, at the very least, remove the broken one.

I considered raking the leaves in the front yard.

My daughter begged me to replace the batteries in the Christmas train. 

At least five loads of laundry sit on the floor next to me. Maybe someone else will do it.

My shower curtain has needed to be replaced for weeks. One more week won’t matter.

All week I told myself that on Saturday I’d take Kim’s car to have the oil changed. That didn’t happen either.

I made a mental list of tasks I wanted to accomplish, and I can’t think of a single one I can cross off. These were my thoughts this afternoon. I supposed I could have started a few projects tonight. Instead I took my nearly 4-year old son with me on an errand.

On the way to the store, he stopped chatting only to catch his breath. He told me about his teacher and friends at pre-school. He told me for Christmas he wants games, a Green Machine for his brother, and some more games. But no clothes because they aren’t fun.

I waited for him to ask to play with my iPhone or iPad. That’s normally what he does the second I clasp the strap to his car seat. But tonight he wanted to talk, and I loved listening to him tell me about what’s important to him. His speech has progressed slower than his siblings, and I’m left to fill in the blanks about 30% of the time.

On the drive home, I called my father to talk about the Utes win last night in Pullman. By the time I hung up, Kai was asleep. Before I got out of the car, I turned around and watched my son take a number of deep breaths. His long-sleeved red shirt had picked up a few drool marks.

As I carried him inside, thoughts of all that I’d failed to accomplish this weekend were replaced with a feeling of how lucky I am to have had that time with my son.

Seven months ago to the day, I packed a single box of items ranging from pictures of my children to a set of Automoblox. One item I didn’t pack up was a fake desk plant I bought at Fred Meyer a few years back. It was as drab as one might imagine a fake plant to be, but I brought it to work with the intention of using it to camouflage the rats nest of cables protruding from my computer.

I knew the day was coming. I’ve been around corporations long enough to sense when something is not right. So I felt a sense of relief as logged off my laptop, grabbed my box of items and turned off my fluorescent office light for the last time.

When I woke up the next morning I had no idea what to do with myself. Kim made breakfast and packed lunches. My job was to make sure the kids got out of the house on time to catch the bus. Sounds easy enough, but I quickly learned that keeping track of three buses, three lunches and four backpacks is every bit as difficult as staying awake during a meeting full of PowerPoint slides.

One benefit I noticed off the bat was how much time I have when I’m not spending three hours a day commuting to work. That’s an extra 15 hours a week I can spend reading, writing or playing baseball with my kids. I’d become accustomed to being away from home for 12-14 hours a day and felt like a part-time father. These past seven months have allowed me to appreciate glimpses into my children’s personalities that I wouldn’t have noticed when I’m scrambling to catch the bus. Seven months ago I could not tell you what each of them like to read, but today I can.

At the first of the year I started a small business with a close friend which is something I’ve wanted to do for years. I’ve made a number of mistakes, but I’ve also learned more about myself than I have in years. We began without a single client and have kept busy through personal referrals. At times it feels like a roller coaster, but I know the peaks are not far from the valleys.

But tomorrow my schedule will change yet again as I begin a new job at another small business here in Auburn. In the past I restricted my job search to the Seattle or Redmond areas. But this time I began in Auburn and intentionally looked for a position with a smaller company. It paid off, and I’m very excited about the opportunity. They also gave me the OK to continue growing my business. I will write about the company and my position in a later post.

What I take from these seven months working at home is a greater appreciation of my spouse. I knew she worked hard, but I had no idea how much energy it takes to manage school schedules, activities, and appointments for four children. When I left the corporate world, I had one recurring alarm on my iPhone that woke me each morning. Today I have six alarms to remind me when to pickup children from school, piano lessons, or scouts. My calendar is packed full of of stuff I never knew existed, and I’ve learned how to properly comb my daughter’s hair.

Unless a pony-tail is involved. Then my daughter motions to the bullpen for mom.

With each keystroke I feel the throb in my hand. Not a deep bruise but enough to remind me that I played catch with my son for about an hour this afternoon. He’ll be nine years old in December, and I couldn’t ask for a better kid.

I’ve been waiting for him to take an interest in baseball. Mostly for selfish reasons because I have so many fond memories of playing catch with my father. After a long day at work, I’d beg him to let me pitch to him in our front yard. He showed me the proper mechanics of pitching, how to hide the ball and how to throw from the stretch with runners on base.

 

We continued to play catch well into my teens. He’d crouch down in a catcher’s stance and set a target for me to hit and would call “strike” if I was close. He spent hours showing me how to grip and release a curveball. My small hands made it difficult to throw it for a strike, but it would loop just enough to keep right-handed hitters off the plate.

Baseball is different than football or basketball, two sports where a person’s size can give them a distinct advantage. Size matters little in baseball. Baseball also requires the player to possess more than one skill. Each player must know how to hit, field and throw the baseball, and that takes years of practice. I often hear that the best athletes play basketball, and I like to remind them what happened when Danny Ainge and Michael Jordan tried to play Major League Baseball.

Last week my son told me that he played baseball with a friend, and asked if I’d play catch with him. He didn’t have a glove, but we hit the store at the right time of the year because all their baseball gear was on clearance. Even my youngest son got his own glove.

After digging around the garage, I located my old Wilson A-2000 I’ve had since I was sixteen. We tossed the ball around the yard until the laces gave out on the back webbing of my glove. I sent it off to be repaired which will take a few weeks.

My son knows I don’t own a spare glove. But after school today, he asked if I’d play catch with him. I considered telling him we’d have to wait till my glove was repaired.

But I thought of all those afternoons my father spent with me tossing the ball back and forth. Of course, he made sure I had the best mitt money could buy. I think he even played barehanded until I could throw the ball hard enough that it would hurt to catch.

So I went outside and tossed the ball with my son on an unusually warm October day in Seattle. I showed him which leg to lift and plant when throwing. We walked through the mechanics of throwing together without a hitch. Occasionally I have to remind myself that he’s left-handed which is an advantage when it comes to hitting. With only a few days worth of practice, he’s getting the hang of it all.

And I don’t mind the sore hand tonight because it’s a reminder of not only the time I spent with my son today but all those afternoons I spent with my father years ago.

When I was dumped in a German city barely able to recite a few religious phrases, one of the most valuable skills I learned as a missionary was how to read a map. And my map of choice was a Falk Plan city map.

This was years before GPS would trickle down from the military to consumers and cell phones were tethered to Cadillacs and reserved for the wealthy. These were still high tech as far as maps were concerned. They fit in a pocket yet expanded to show much of the city. Many hours were spent flipping to the index to lookup the street name, and then thumbing forward to the exact page and map quadrant where I’d find the street and begin planning my route.

It wasn’t long before I became obsessed with maps and couldn’t leave the apartment without one in my breast pocket. This was helpful when my German skills were in their infancy. But as can be the case with GPS today, I learned to rely on that map instead of my instincts. Instead of scanning landmarks and recognizing neighborhoods, I buried my head in the map.

As my German improved I began keeping my map in my leather bag. I figured that if I got lost, I could ask a stranger for directions. Maybe it wasn’t enough to get me to my destination, but if they pointed me in the right direction, I’d just ask someone else along the way.

I trained myself to look for landmarks. I searched for short cuts, and began charting my own course based on feedback from people who lived in these communities. They often provided tips on what areas we should avoid, especially in the larger cities. One morning I asked a woman if she could give us directions to city center and she told us we’d best stay home because an anti-American rally was taking place near town.

Over time, I relied less on my map. I had good instincts. But it took months before I felt confident enough to lean on them.

I still encounter maps today, but they’re no longer the pocket-sized versions. They show up when I am learning a new skill to further my business or when my children look to me to solve a problem because that’s what fathers do. During these moments, a pocket sized book of answers would come in handy. I’d turn to the index, find “hates school” and chart my route knowing I’ve left the heavy lifting to someone else.

Today there’s a map and an app for that.

But life doesn’t work that way. We learn when we step off the curb and make our way into the unknown, trusting only our instincts.

And somehow we reach our destination while the map stays buried deep in our bag.

“I wanted my kids to know me…I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

That was the answer Steve Jobs gave to Walter Isaacson, author of the first authorized biography about the man who put an iPod and iPhone in the pocket of millions.

“I wanted my kids to know me.”

I read those words over and over until I began to question their meaning. How could his four children not know their father? Wouldn’t a billionaire be able to carve out a week here and there to jet his family off to Sun Valley to ski together? Or rent a yacht off the coast of Bermuda? I can’t picture the Jobs clan slumming it at Wild Waves. Doesn’t money buy time with your loved ones?

Maybe not.

My point isn’t to pass judgment on Steve Jobs or any other father. I don’t recall my father accompanying me on a field trip during my grade school years. But he more than made up for it when I reached high school, and he’s continued to put a premium on spending time with me and my family.

I wonder if the flip side to possessing a brilliant and laser focused mind that creates some of the world’s most sought after products is a reduced desire to spend time with those at home? Is it possible that he could recite every detail of the iPod, down to the internals, but couldn’t name a song on his son’s playlist?

When I began this blog, I didn’t have children. I also had few readers so I wrote whatever came to mind without considering who might come across it. Technically, it wasn’t very polished, but I consider it to be the most interesting work I’ve recorded. It was raw. But it was me, and that’s what I imagine my children reading one day when I’m no longer around.

Had I considered that my kids would one day have access to it, I probably would have stripped every ounce of personality from it. I’m glad I didn’t do that even if it means answering a few questions about part of my life I’m not exactly proud of. I suppose I could delete the posts, but what would that accomplish? I can’t delete them from my past. Those experiences are what helped form the father they know today.

Plus, it’s not as if I can fool my children. It doesn’t take long before they ascertain how invested I am in their interests and their lives. I may as well write how I feel instead of sanitizing it for the few people who may not agree with it. If I write one thing, but act entirely different, my children will know.

Yes, I want my kids to know me.

The real me.