Adventures Of Fatherhood – February 16, 2018

Adventures Of Fatherhood – February 16, 2018

Juggling time and responsibilities is a part of parenthood.

That’s something I never gave much thought to before having children. However, it’s now just a way of life that comes with the journey.

That’s what I was thinking when I got up at 4 in the morning yesterday to write this column. My week had been so hectic I never got a chance to write one word of this 1,000-word piece. There’s nothing impressive about my process with this weekly piece. I open up an empty Word file and do what I call free write. After some editing and organization, the column comes to be without much trouble.

If I ever get stuck or have a period of writer’s block, I just walk around my house or click through photos on my phone to bring up some thoughts I could expand on. At one time, I kept notes on my phone of things I wanted to write about. I’ve pretty much dropped that habit, and I blame it being too busy.

There was one day this week when I just shook my head all day. It was an impossible day. After the morning school routine, I dropped both kids off at their schools and had a crazy busy day at the office. When my reminder went off on my computer for Carson’s speech appointment, I admit to cursing under my breath because I had to stop what I was doing in the middle of the afternoon and rush to get him from school to take to Salisbury. After his one-hour speech session, which is always inspiring because of his amazing perseverance and tremendous work ethic, we drove back to Berlin.

After dropping him off at home with Pam, I then took Beckett to his soccer practice in Frankford, Del. We got home about 8 p.m. and there was still homework to check over. As soon as I walked in the door, Carson signed that he wanted to play a game with me because he had a good day at school. When I mentioned it was bedtime, he convinced me with a pitiful look that it could wait 20 minutes.

It was later that night when I finally got a chance to watch some of the Olympics when I got to thinking how ridiculous the day had been. I ran all three counties over the course of five hours when I needed to be working. However, as a I thought back on it, I realized there was some insanity with my day, but it was also a memorable one. The reality was I was doing what I wanted to do and would do it again tomorrow.

I was able to spend an hour listening to my non-verbal son work incredibly hard in speech therapy and say words I thought impossible. I watched as he tried to say the word “baby.” He struggled with it bigtime, but I was amazed as he corrected himself when he made the wrong sound and never once got frustrated. What was a year ago believed to be impossible now is very much possible. Up until the last year I wondered if he even wanted to talk in the first place because he seemed so content without a voice. I have learned to never doubt him because he will overcome but it will be on his timeline.

For his part, although it was rushed and stressful to get him to practice on time while quizzing him on his reading test the next day, I watched as Beckett was an outstanding teammate to his friends on his soccer team. He celebrates their goals more than his own and that’s a sign of maturity to me. He gets what team sports is about.

It was a good day. I still maintain the scheduling of it all was absurd but it’s these full days that will be memorable years from now.

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Children have different levels of consciousness I am convinced.

I don’t know how else to resolve my confusion over Beckett’s forgetful nature.

Every couple weeks or so I go into Beckett’s school to retrieve jackets he has left behind because he doesn’t remember to bring them home. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold out when he leaves school. To me, it seems logical to think he would remember his jacket as soon as the cold air hits him on his way out the door. His response is a shrug of the shoulders, a comment about how he’s immune to “Mother Nature’s wrath” and an assurance the jacket is not lost and at school. That’s usually the case.

At other times, that’s not been the outcome. I’ve stopped counting because it annoys me, but I’m guessing he has lost 15 soccer balls in his life. Most of the time this is a result of him taking off around the neighborhood with a ball and forgetting it. Rather than insisting he go back and get it at that time, we make a mental note for the next day. As life goes, that mental note gets forgotten and days go by. When an attempt at retrieving the soccer ball is made later, it’s no where to be found. I remember him clearly saying to me as we looked for a missing ball under shrubs and in the woods one day that “sometimes things aren’t meant to be, Dad.”

As another example, during a few weeks last year, he lost several Swell bottles at school. One day I decided to look in the school’s lost and found to see if the Swell bottles were in there. I was comforted when I saw what appeared to be a dozen Swell bottles, none of which were his. It seems misery loves company in this case.

About The Author: Steven Green

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The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.