HAVE YOUR EVER?

Dear Spike:

Sometimes you'll look at your partner and swim with feelings of love.

Sometimes you'll feel something else...


Spike's mom: Have you ever felt like smothering me?

Spike's dad: Um, no.

Spike's mom: Oh, that's good.


There's an obvious follow-up question I could have asked her. But I didn't. I'd rather not know.

Love,
dad

MY LITTLE LION

Dear Spike:

We went to the new soccer stadium in Sandy last night. It was going to be a cold night, so you and I stopped by the costume store to pick up a warm outfit -- a lion, in honor of the home team, Real Salt Lake.

Super cute, really.

My plan was to parade you around the stadium at halftime, but we never got that far.

Seems all the excitement was just too much for you. About 10 minutes into the game, you got sick. Luckily, the team had given away free commemorative towels at the beginning of the game, so we had something to mop you up with.

Unfortunately, the lion costume didn't survive the onslaught of upchuck. And although we had a change of clothes for you in our backpack, it wasn't likely to keep you warm through the rest of the game.

And so, not more than 15 minutes into the inaugural game at Rio Tinto Stadium — with plenty of folks still on their way in — we headed home.

On the way out, your mother asked if I was disappointed. I'm not sure she believed me when I told her I wasn't, but that was the truth.

There was a time in my life when soccer was everything. But these days, my little lion, it's not even close.

Love,
dad

FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE

Dear Spike:

Your mother and I sat down for dinner tonight. Nothing gourmet. Far from it in fact: we had salisbury steaks, tomatoes, peas and poutine.

The latter dish is a Canadian fast food staple consisting of french fries, cheese curds or mozzarella and gravy. I think the word "poutine" might mean "coronary" in French, but I'm not sure.

Before digging in, your mother considered the menu and asked: "Since we're eating Canadian tonight, does that give us foreign policy experience?"

I recognize that, by the time you're old enough to read this letter, this joke will have no relevance to you.

But tonight, it was damn funny.

Love,
dad

YOUR OWN HERO

Dear Spike:

It all kind of happened in slow motion.

You were sitting on the playground, minding your own business, running your fingers through the tanbark near the base of the slide. All of the sudden, a boy about a year your senior grabbed a handful of bark and, point blank, threw it in your face.

Maybe I'm a bad father, but I didn't really do anything.

It's not that I didn't want to. Every basal impulse in my body was telling me to march right up to that little punk, grab him by his Gymboree jacket collar, and toss his smug little mug into the mud. And that impulse was even stronger after his mother, who watched the whole thing unfold just as I did, sauntered over to let me know that her little pookey "probably didn't mean to hurt your daughter."

So your kid's not savage, just stupid? I should throw you into the mud too, lady.

Luckily for all of us, you were none the worse for the wear. A little stunned, maybe, and with a mouth full of playground nastiness, but not in any sort of pain, so far as I could tell.

I suppose I could have jumped into the fray — I could have swept you up from the spot where you were playing next to that cruddy little kid and whisked you away. I could have run you over to the park restrooms to wash out your mouth and wash off your face and hair, which had little pieces of bark dust stuck in it. I could have packed you back into your stroller and headed home for a bath and a change of clothes.

Maybe any of those things would have been the right thing to do. But I didn't do any of those things.

Instead, I sat back and watched as you looked dumbfounded at the boy and then, quite calmly, went back to digging your fingers into the dirt.

I'm not sure, but I think that was an OK outcome. You took a lump and kept on going — and, at least in a very small way, figured out how to handle the situation on your own, without daddy sweeping in for the rescue.

Someday, I imagine, you're going to need me to sweep in and do what big, angry men do — to thump my chest and pull you away from danger and right the wrongs and generally take care of business.

But most of the time, you're going to need to be your own hero — to remove yourself from danger, to right the wrongs that can be righted, and to generally take care of your own business. Or, when appropriate, to just turn the other cheek as you did today.

Sometimes, I think, you know better than I do. Thank goodness for that.

Love,
dad

I LOVE IT

Dear Spike:

I love it when you sing. 

Love,

dad

 

THE BEAVER CALL

Dear Spike:

We come together one...

We come together all...

And when we come together...

We do the Beaver Call! 

You attended your first Oregon State football game this evening. It didn't end as we'd hoped (if you're going to be a Beaver Believer, that's something you might just have to get used to.) Still, you definitely had a good time.

You cheered. You shook an orange and black pompom. You ate ice cream. And when it was all said and done, you walked out of the stadium with your head held high...

... and then promptly fell asleep on your mother's shoulder. 

Love,

dad  

DEAR SPIKE: WOW

Dear Spike:

Wow. That was a lot of vomit.

Love,

dad 

THE UGLY BUG

Dear Spike:

It's flu season — and you, your mother and I all came down with the ugly bug over the weekend.

Here's a few good ways to know that you're really sick:

1) You rush into the bathroom, but can't decide which way to approach the toilet.

2) The taste of water makes you gag.

3) After a few days away, you're actually looking forward to getting back to work. 

4) You look at yourself in them mirror and think, "who is that corpse?" 

We're all recovering now, but I'm seriously considering moving somewhere where there aren't so many viruses.

Like Antarctica.

Love,

dad 

  

LIFE AND DEATH

Dear Spike:

I'm still not exactly sure how it happened, but something — likely a raccoon — got into the chicken coop last night.

Bubba and The Colonel are dead. Wanda is hurt pretty bad, and we'll have to put her down today.

I'll spare you the details. Life's just unfair sometimes. Sometimes, that's all you need to say. And sometimes that's all you can say. 

You're mother's pretty upset. About the birds we've lost and about the daughter who, when she wakes up later this morning, is going to be asking to go feed the chickens — "chick-ahn, chick-ahn" – like she always does.

You won't understand. Heck, I'm 30 years your senior and sometimes I don't understand. That's life. And death.

Love,

dad

LITTLE CUCKOO CLOCK

Dear Spike:

You've learned a song.

It goes: "Tick tock, tick tock, I'm a little cuckoo clock."

For now, all you know is the "tick tock" part, but it's nonetheless certifiably adorable, particularly when you rock back and forth as you sing.

Love,

dad