Last week I took a day off work specifically to stay home with my kids and give my wife a day to herself.
We are both blessed with a 2 1/2 yr old boy and a beautiful girl that's four months old. So our days are jammed packed with feedings and diapers and tantrums and sleep deprivation and poop and laughing and smiles and tears (from all four of us.) Like I said, we are blessed. But sometimes a person needs a break from such blessings. Last Tuesday was Lubi's.
A little precursor to my life outside of all this blessing... let's just say that for the past 2 months, my life has never been harder and leave it at that. The sleep deprivation, tantrums and poop squirting across the room (not being figurative here) has been a respite in comparison. So as much as I should feel like the luckiest man alive (and I am) the sad truth is that I've had a hard time shaking my life at "the office" at the end of the day when I come home.
So. My "day off" started at the usual time: 5:58am with an uncanny routine poop that Siena wakes me up with (I take mornings BTW) everyday like clockwork. Every "other" day, the diaper gives up and an entire outfit change is necessary. Once in a while... a bath is necessary. But this time? Just a plain ole poopie diaper. Easy.
Caleb is up soon after. 6:45. I turn on The Channel Formerly Known as Noggin to buy me some time to move slow, wake up, poor a sippy cup of milk and microwave three mini whole wheat pancakes for exactly :30 seconds.
(queue microwave SFX: “BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEP.")
And... the day has officially begun. Just like every single day of my life has for two years and five months. Oh yeah, except... one big difference here, it's Tuesday, I took the day off work and Lubi is up and out of the house faster than a frat boy after a one night stand, "Later! ...I'll call you sometime. (snicker)"
(door: “SLAM”)
And so it begins. I'm on my own... With them... For 12 hours. Holy crap. What have I done?
Now. I don't want to toot my own horn. But I'm a Modern Dad so I know the ropes. I change diapers. Midnight feed. Burp one while disciplining the other. I don't think I'm a slouch around kids and babies. But once that door slammed? The three if us glanced around at each other as if authority was up for grabs. But it didn't take long before I stepped up and took charge.
"We’re goin’ to the park!"
I decided to take the kids to a new park. Don’t ask me why, this is a personality trait/flaw of mine that new equals better and more exciting. So since Caleb had never been to this park, I assumed he would be happier there because of the “newness” and all. The truth is, I don’t think he noticed.
As we approach this exciting new undiscovered park. I notice that there are no kids in sight. Might not be too shocking considering it was 9am on a Tuesday and about 55 degrees outside but what do I know, I’m usually at work. I also notice that the playground, though brand new looking was planted smack dab in the middle of a park surrounded by people that… hmm… in an effort to be politically correct Thesaurus.com described as: “beggars, bums, derelicts, drifters, migrant workers, street people, tramps, transients, vagabonds, vagrants, wanderers, and/or winos” Clearly I’m not one to judge, which is why I used thesaurus.com to do the dirty work for me, but remember, I’ve got a toddler and an infant to watch over, to me everyone is a threat.
In the middle of our running and sliding and bouncing on one of those horses with one big awkward spring instead of legs, we are joined by two more park goers an older gentleman and a little girl about Calebs age. My first instinct was to be upset. Afterall, this was my discovery. This was our new park on Transient Island… And what the heck are they doing out in the cold, this early on a Tuesday morning?
I got over it and went over to say hi and create uncomfortable small talk. He was a healthy 70, slim, six-foot somethin’ had a U of M ball cap on and a pair of Levis. He’s a grandpa to this little girl. Has one son and one daughter, like just me. Both of those kids each have two kids as well. One son and one daughter, each.
I was cynical at first, he was at peace. I opened up by talking about the shady company we were surrounded by. He immediately countered by talking about how he envied them. How they are just enjoying the park and not trying to be more than they are or tricking anyone into being someone they aren’t. He looked up at me in a fatherly glance, connected briefly and said, “They aren’t the people in this world you need to worry about.”
I opened up a little more. And told him how I took the day off to watch the kids and give my wife a break from our crazy lives. Told him how difficult an infant and a toddler are to wrangle. Told him that my sleep deprivation could be creating slight insanity in me.
In the midst of my rambling and grumbling he looked up at me and ask, “You took a day off of work to spend with your kids?” I answered “Yep.” as if responding to the rhetorical question, “Have you lost your freakin’ mind?”
His response was simple but it changed my day, possibly my life. He got lost in the sky, our conversation came to halt and he spent a moment in silence. Then he said quietly, “I could’ve done that. I could’ve taken a day off to be with them. I never did.”
We carried on a conversation for probably another half hour. He then scooped up his granddaughter and headed back to where he came from. And was gone.
Caleb and Siena and I left the park soon after and It wasn’t until my entire day ended, the kids were asleep, and Lubi retuned home that I was able to reflect on the day. I realized everything changed after that moment at the park. My cynicism melted away. I enjoyed my kids. I didn’t think about work. We played and laughed and bonded and I felt lucky to be there. I felt lucky to be there Daddy.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized his response made so much sense to me, but yet his stories, his kids, his appearance from out of nowhere at 9am on a Tuesday morning, 55 degrees in a brand new park surrounded but transients, his being there when I was made no sense at all.
He drove to that park, from the outskirts of town yet there were plenty of better parks nearby worth driving to, not this one. He complimented the homeless people around us. He was positive, peaceful. I never got his name. I never saw him arrive and didn’t see him leave. Yet there was no crowd to get lost in. No traffic to drive into.
I’m okay not knowing who he was. Because I know he was at that park on a Tuesday morning at 55 degrees surrounded by independent honest individuals that happen to enjoy chess, beer and aren’t trying to fool anybody into being something they aren’t, for a reason.
He was there to remind me how to enjoy the jammed packed days of feedings and diapers and tantrums and sleep deprivation and poop and laughing and smiles and tears.
He was there to remind me that I truly am the luckiest man alive.
