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Posts Tagged ‘bubba’
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East Bound and Down: The Nutcracker Run
By Daddy Clay Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
What could possible induce me to leave my son’s state finals soccer game early, jump in a car and dodge speed traps across half the state of Texas? The ballet, that’s what.
It’s true. With seven or so minutes left to play (will someone please explain to me how they keep time in soccer?), I packed up my camera bag and folding chair and attempted to back slowly away from the game without attracting the attention of the “good parents.”
No luck. As I was literally slinking away, the coach tore his attention away from the game to shout at me, asking if my son had a ride home. Oh, the shame. (Bubba’s grandparents made the road trip to Beaumont and gave him a lift home.)
I had consulted the Garmin, Google maps, and every parent at breakfast before setting my departure time at exactly 9am. By my calculations that would have me screaming into the driveway in time to scoop up my daughter, and head to the Long Center for the annual Father Daughter Trip to See the Austin Ballet Production of the Nutcracker.
I stopped only once during the 250 mile stretch between Beaumont and Austin. If Nascar Pit Crews were required to pump regular, pee and get a bag of pretzels, that was how they would pump regular, pee and get a bag of pretzels.
I arrived in Austin with twenty minutes to spare. Which immediately made me regret leaving the game early. This was not helped when my son texted my that he “really, really, really, really” wished that I had been there for the awards ceremony (his team finished 4th in the State).
This guilt was assuaged when I saw my girl in her pretty dress, so excited and ready to ride in my muddy sled to the Nutcracker.
I could give a damn about the performance, for the most part. And, as I’ve confessed before, I have some worries that our tradition is a bit too gender stereotyped. But there is no resisting the pure fun we have together; finding our secret balcony for a pre-show snack, ringing up the souvenir nutcracker (the Rat King this year), and peeking at the orchestra before settling into our seats.
Well worth the speeding ticket risks and compromised spectating. It’s just what we do, right dads?
How to Root Against Your Child’s Sports Team
By Daddy Clay Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
As a spectator, it is very difficult to root against your kid. I know because I’ve tried it and failed miserably.
Let’s be clear. I’m a good dad. But like most good dads, I sometimes want my son’s sports teams to lose. Like the time when he was playing soccer and if he won the last game of the season, his team would go to the playoffs. And the playoffs were in Harlingen, Texas. And Harlingen, Texas sucks. (Apologies to my Harlingen readers, but they know it sucks.) The team won.
Or the time my son was playing in the playoffs in Harlingen and if they won they would go to the State Finals. And the State Finals were in Beaumont, Texas. And Beaumont, Texas sucks. (Apologies to my Beaumont readers, who don’t generally know that Beaumont sucks, but it sucks.) The team won.
In both cases, I hoped that his team would lose to spare me endless hours in the car, stays at mid-level chain hotels, sketchy chain restaurant food, day-long stretches in folding chairs next to fellow parents that I know sorta-well but not quite, and heart wrenching games decided at the last minute with high emotional stakes for the kids (a combo meal of goodness that would also tally several hundred dollars). No dice.
The problem, as any sideline dad will tell you, is that you can’t really root against your kid’s team, no matter how grim or expensive the consequences of a win. Even if part of you doesn’t want to give up another weekend and miss being with the other kids and the spouse while dust gathers on the lengthy holiday to-do list. Can’t do it.
Instead, you sit on the sidelines with your guts churning over a 1-1 tie that is stretching into the final moments of the semi-final that determines who will go to State. You try hard to remind yourself that it’s just 11-year-olds playing a game you know nothing about, but when the winning goal sails in, you jump up and scream your head off and hug the other parents that you now feel like you know pretty well. You snap pictures, and hastily put on your sunglasses even though it’s cloudy.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t root against your kid’s sports teams, just that it’s very hard to do. Trust me.
The Homework Ate My Dog: or The Frog Prince
By Daddy Clay Monday, October 5th, 2009
Exhausted, caked in mud, eyes straining in the moonlight, I lurched through the Austin night. A rough day at ACL? Nope. Just helping with homework.
Since Bubba started at his new school, our evenings have turned into an episode of CSI. My wife and I are forensic investigators trying to piece together fragmentary evidence and interview reluctant witnesses in an attempt to get an answer to one simple question: Have you done your homework?
Most afternoons at about four thirty, one of us asks the dread homework question which sends our Person of Interest into a coma of eye rolling and flopping onto his bed. I then don those special goggles, get out the ultraviolet light and begin digging around in Bubba’s backpack. Little of use turns up — his assignment book has been crushed, wrinkled, spindled and partially burned.
Direct interrogation is also of little use. Bubba responds to the Bad Cop (my wife) with answers that would do an AIG exec proud. To the Good Cop he alternates “I did that in study hall” with “We didn’t have any” until I relent. On the night in question I ask: “Do you have any Science, at least?” “Nope,” he answers on his way out the door to soccer practice.
My wife and I are doing our best to find the right balance of homework help with our 6th grader. Obviously, the objective is for him to be able to manage his homework on his own. Unfortunately for Bubba, my wife and I have lots of experience (25+ years actually) in what his new school expects of students. We insist that he walk through all his nightly assignments with us. My wife is generally called in to help him through his math on a problem by problem basis.
The tension this involvement generates, combined with the hard work involved in getting the homework completed nightly, leaves us all crabby and exhausted by eight. After putting the younger kids to bed, I seek out Bubba for a little reading or TV watching. Just a few minutes without an agenda to reconnect after our evening of CSI.
Last Monday night, aha a Cowboy game! Totally beat, the two of us flop in the sofa for some restorative bonding and couch potato time before bed.
Before we’ve even settled in, Bubba points to the window above the TV and shouts, “I need that!” I follow his gesture to the window. “It’s my Science homework! I have to have it by tomorrow!” He is pointing at a gecko skittering across the window in pursuit of a moth.
So I find myself out in a drizzling rain carrying a bucket and a dishtowel, prowling around the house swearing under my breath. I’m a deranged, suburban Steve Irwin. My plan is to creep under the window and sweep unsuspecting amphibian into the bucket with the towel. What actually happens is: I lunge at the window, step in gooey mud, pull my groin, howl in pain, fling the bucket and say bad words.
I burst through the door wild-eyed and covered in mud. Bubba turns on his heel and runs, in tears, to his bed. I turn back around, collect my bucket, and limp into the night.
As I muck around, pointing a pen-light at every drainage ditch and muddy hole, I’m lacerating myself for my outburst, feeling guilt for putting my son in such a high-pressure school environment, wondering if my wife and I are really on the same page about education, and begging, begging the universe to put some damn creature in the bucket before I catch pneumonia.
As I turn over rocks in a full-blown rainstorm, I realize that I am hoping that a snake will bite me, as it will be easier to catch that way. After about an hour, it becomes clear that every living creature got the message but me — time to go inside. I’m trudging back through our yard when I almost step on the toad.
I’ve pulled Bubba out of bed, and he’s as excited as I am. The toad, less so. He jumps out onto the kitchen table (don’t tell my wife), and there is a scary moment before we get him back into his temporary home. By the time, I get Bubba tucked back in, I’m too tired to know if anything I have ever done is right, but I know this: If, as a teenager, he ever questions my love for him, I’m just going to say “Tell it to the Toad.”
Doctor Gives Tips on Baby Hips: Front Carrier Safety at the ABC Kids Show
By Daddy Clay Thursday, October 1st, 2009
One of the really nice things about being sponsored by BabyBjorn is that I don’t lose much sleep over recommending their products. The design and manufacturing are such that I just don’t have to worry about some nightmare Sigg bottle story cropping up and crashing what little good name we have.
I really only had one lingering worry about BabyBjorn, and it’s one I think is probably shared by many parents. It seems like I had heard vague rumblings and rumors that carrying infants in front carriers might be bad for their hips and legs. I’m not sure I ever saw a study or heard a specific claim, but it’s the kind of thing you might hear from somebody who is a real sling fanatic (I’m not anti-sling, we used one on occasion). I just had a nagging worry that front carriers might have some negative effect.
To address this issue BabyBjorn invited Dr, Amanda Weiss-Kelly, a pediatric sports medicine specialist (among other things) at the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland to come to the ABC Kids Expo in Vegas to deliver a talk.
Her first topic, after giving some background on what the amazing Rainbow Babies, was typical hip and spine concerns among newborns and infants. The more prevalent is developmental dysplasia. Yes, dysplasia is not just for German Shepherds any more. I know this first hand because my eldest, Bubba, was a preemie and had a bit of dysplasia. For preemies, sometimes the hip joint has not completely closed at birth and this can become an issue. Bubba’s hip had closed by the time of his follow up visit, so he did not require therapy or treatment.
Dr. Weiss-Kelly did a good job of describing what that treatment would have been: a harness that held the baby in a position that kept both legs flexed and abducted — that is slightly bent and open. She put a slide of the harness up on the screen — and to my highly untrained and unmedical eye — it looked a lot like a BabyBjorn baby carrier. The position was very similar.
