Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood
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I had my first funnel cake the other day, and now I get it.

Somewhere along the way without me knowing Beckett became a huge fan of funnel cakes. I never understood this love affair. All it now takes is for him to see one and he has a hard time getting it out of his head.

Case in point was a few weeks ago while at Frontier Town’s water park. Almost as soon as we walked in, he saw a funnel cake across the way and the requests starting flying. He can’t see the pile of clothes on the floor that he tripped over for two days, but he can spot a funnel cake in a crowd quite well.

A few times before, he had mentioned smelling a funnel cake without seeing one, but I was able to dodge those by feigning ignorance over the whole thing or changing the subject to something I know he likes to talk about, such as armpit sounds, slide tackles in soccer and karate kicks.

After having his lunch and running out of excuses on why he could not have one, I caved and the next thing I know four of us are sitting at a picnic table tearing up a funnel cake, which seemed entirely too small.

Apparently, unlike me, Pam is no stranger to funnel cakes. When she showed Beckett how to get the powdered sugar off the greased-up plate with his finger, he gave his mom a hilarious look of adoration and was clearly impressed by her creativity.

I admit to being a little jealous that I didn’t get to enjoy the last remnants of the funnel cake and contemplated offering to get another one before the kids quickly ran back to the slides.

This newfound affinity for funnel cake got me thinking about the other strange things that I am eating these days that I never did previously.

Here’s some other examples:

•Because we have found dairy has a negative impact on Carson, meaning it makes him crazy, we are now a largely dairy-free house (although I definitely cheat more than anyone).

While Carson knows dairy turns him into a wild child, he doesn’t have the willpower to make the decision on his own to refrain.

At the grocery store the other night, that was on full display as he was constantly putting packets of cheese and tubs of cheese balls in the shopping cart. At one point, while I was grabbing something out of the frozen section, he scooted to the next closest door and was able to toss in two huge trays of Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese. He then signed “you and me” for dinner after we go swimming.

While I embraced the thought of that for a minute, I showed him the kind of macaroni and cheese he could have in the organic aisle. It was one-fifth the size of the huge family tray he had hoped for and his disappointment was obvious, as he tossed the little container on the floor, grabbed my hand and starting pulling me back in the other direction.

He had a bit of meltdown and to stave off more of a breakdown I showed him a Twix bar we could split on the way home if he got it together.

•The best food to have on the beach is fried chicken, in my opinion, and my boys agree.

The rub here is the leg is my favorite part. That’s something my kids share with me as well, resulting in my days of eating chicken legs apparently being numbered.

Typically, I grab a bucket of fried chicken for the beach, usually a dozen pieces depending on how big our group is on any particular day.

Invariably, as soon as we get to the beach, Beckett starts in with, “I call the legs everybody.”

Last week I let him know there were only three legs in a dozen and went about explaining the physical structure of a chicken in way too much detail. As he so often does, he offered a compromise that largely benefitted him.

He grabbed a leg and handed it to Carson, who seemed excited by that, and then grabbed the two remaining legs and sat down in a chair. Of course, it was my chair he took.

In another compromise type of move, he brought to me the last bit of his second leg, pointing out he saved some of it for me. The only problem was it was nothing but the bone and a few small pieces of gristle.

•After getting a haircut the other day, Beckett grabbed a lollipop (actually it was two) on his way out.

The one flavor was grape (his favorite) and the other had a mystery wrapper. He went with the mystery one first and said he hated it before tossing it on the car seat.

Because he was so disgusted by it, he wouldn’t even hand it to me (deep breath moment there), so I reached back to get it off my seat. He implored me to try it, saying it was terrible.

The flavor turned out to be supreme pizza and it was so gross my immediate reaction was to throw it on the floor of my truck, for some reason.

I immediately realized that was not my best parenting moment. Beckett, of course, loved it and hasn’t let me forget about it since.