(I’m listening to “Chrysalis” by S. Carey)

The wife and I have been married for going on 9 years.  We have two amazing girls, a warm home, great jobs, flexible schedules, and everything we need.  We set aside time to go over our schedules every week, have budget “pow wows”, and spend time with the kids.  We both have hobbies and we give each other time to do them.  We go on vacations. Our life is really awesome.  All of that said, sometimes we accidentally forget to take the time to be in love.

We don’t do it on purpose.  It’s just that between all of the “things” we have going on, our relationship can sometimes take a back seat.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s great that our relationship is strong enough to support us, but even the most reliable things need some maintenance every once in a while.  So, we gave our relationship some maintenance today and it will be the first time of many.

Friday mornings don’t fall under the stereotypical workday for us.  The wife is self-employed, so if she busts her butt Monday through Thursday, sometimes she can take things easy on Fridays.  I usually work late on Friday’s, so I don’t have to go to work until the afternoon.  That leaves the morning for us.

Today, we hired a babysitter so the wife and I could go on a day date.  The kids love our babysitter.  She’s a girl who lives up the street.  Littles gets so excited when we tell her the babysitter is coming.  She often refers to the babysitter as her best friend and she’s great with our kids.

After telling our oldest what we were doing and getting some goodbye hugs, our first stop was yoga.  The wife loves yoga.  Before kids, we used to go together, but I think I’ve gone once since.  It’s just hard to get us both out of the house at the same time without the kids.  We don’t live near family so we can’t just drop them off at grandma’s and go out.  We have to plan ahead and be intentional about it, which makes it all the more special when we get to do something like this.  We have to really take advantage of this time together.

Yoga was a heated C2 class.  That means they jack up the heat while you’re twisting and stretching yourself.  I hadn’t been to yoga in a while so I was a bit nervous because of a previous experience with a heated C2.  A heated C2, reminds me of our trip to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon.  Our honeymoon happened three years after we were married due to the fact we were broke (I’m laughing while I say that).  We had just paid for a wedding, we had student loans, and car payments.  Instead of putting a trip on a credit card and thinking about it the whole time, we decided to do Dave Ramsey’s plan and get out of debt.  Then, we saved the money for our honeymoon.  It took us three years to do all of that, but it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

Anyway, the night before we left for Puerto Rico, we wanted to get relaxed, so we went to a heated C2 yoga class.  I thought I was going to die.  I was sweating from places I didn’t even know I could sweat from.  I think my tongue was even sweating.  When we were done, I was drenched, like I had just come out of a shower.  I was worked.  It was hard, but I felt great.  That’s kind of how yoga is for me.  I never really want to go to yoga, but when I’m done, I’m always glad I went.  With that said, I don’t remember “the glad” as much as I do “the bad;” so with that memory of complete exhaustion in my mind, I was thinking this class was going to be torture.  I must have exaggerated that memory in my head because this class was excellent!  Afterwards, I felt like a million bucks and was ready for the next part of our date…breakfast!

The wife and I love going to breakfast together, and it’s great having an awesome breakfast place near our house.  It’s called The Bagel Deli.  It’s a Jewish deli and it was featured on the show “Diners, Drive-In’s, and Dives.”  It has been there for 50 years and I doubt much has changed since it opened.

We both had the “Eggs Bagel-Dict” with corned beef, and it was amazing.

The food is great, but it’s really the time spent together that makes The Bagel Deli so special to me, and us.  It’s a time to talk, a time to connect, and a time to maintain our relationship.  Like I said, it’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day “operations” of our family and before I can blink, a few weeks go by, and we’re like, “I feel like we haven’t spent any time together!” or “I feel like we’re far apart.”   The wife’s love languages, (if you don’t know what love languages are, I suggest the book, “The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts” by Gary Chapman) are “acts of service” and “quality time.”  What that means is, sure, the wife loves it when I do the dishes and the laundry, but she also loves to spend time with me!  Those things fill her love tank, and as her husband, I like to keep that tank full; in fact, I vowed to keep that tank full.

It’s so important to spend dedicated time together, with just us.  We started this family with us because we love each other and wanted to be together; and, no matter what responsibilities we have, it’s important to remember the greatest responsibility is to each other.  That’s why we have days like today and why we will have more in the future; because it’s important to take the time to be in love.

I had a great time, honey.  Would you like to go out again…say, next Friday?  Great.  I’ll pick you up at 9…AM.

 

(I’m listening to Marcy Playground’s first CD)

Happy Father’s Day!

Lately, I’ve been listening to Marcy Playground’s first album a lot because I went to their show a week ago or so.  I’ll never forget the show because that was the night the wife and I met a couple that we might be helping out in the near future.  We met them for dinner at a local Italian restaurant and afterwards, the wife dropped me off at Herman’s Hideaway to see Marcy Playground and Fuel with a couple of good friends.  It was a really fun show.  To top it off, I got to go snowboarding the next day.  Yeah, the wife is awesome.

Anyone who is into 90’s music like I am knows Marcy Playground’s most popular song, “Sex and Candy.”  It’s a really strange title because the song isn’t about sex or candy.  The song isn’t really about anything.  It was the 90’s and anyone could write a song about anything.  Is “Glycerine” really about glycerine?  Who knows?  Just don’t let the days go by.  Anyway, what I didn’t realize about Marcy Playground is they have a lot of other good songs.  I know I had heard them before, but none of them were as catchy as “Sex and Candy.”  A lot of people might even say Marcy Playground was a one hit wonder, and according to the music charts, they’d be right.  But that’s why live music is so great.  I might have been waiting to hear that one song I remembered, but I discovered that I liked a lot of Marcy Playground songs.  So, I bought the vinyl at the show, it sounds terrific, and then I bought the CD from a used CD place in town, and I’ve been listening to them ever since.

I love live music.  It just makes me feel young; not that I’m old or anything.  It just gives the human side of me a shot in the arm.  Going to shows is different as a dad.  I still do it, but it’s a bigger production.  Before kids, I could find a show I wanted to see, make sure I didn’t have anything else going on that night, buy the ticket, and go.  Simple.  It was a carefree process.  Now, there’s a little more planning involved due to schedules and child care.  Plus, I have to consider what’s going on the next day because I know I’ll be out late and the kids won’t care that I was out late.  It’s just different.  But, once I walk in those doors to the show, it’s the same carefree experience.  It gives my human side a boost and my dad side a break.

(A quick side note…I just heard a faint whimper of “daddy” from down the hall.  My 3-year-old needed to go potty, so I had to help her out.  That happens frequently when I’m writing.  I tend to write later at night when everyone has gone to bed.  That way, I can avoid neglecting my family, I can concentrate, and hopefully not be interrupted.  But, it never fails that around midnight, Littles will need to go potty or need her blankets put back on.  I really don’t mind at all.  It’s actually an adorable moment, and it’s what this dad does.)

Speaking of being a dad, today was Father’s Day and it was a great day.  A couple of days before, the wife asked me if there was anything special I wanted to do.  I didn’t say it out loud, but the first thing that popped into my mind was “relax.”  We have had a lot of stuff going on lately.  The wife and I have both started exercising again, work has been busy, we had our house painted, and we’re going out of town soon, so I just wanted to relax.

On a normal day, the wife and I do a pretty good job of splitting the “family workload” 50/50.  On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, the wife and I try to give the other a break and do more of the heavy lifting.  We didn’t really talk about doing that, it just sort of happened this year.  The wife did awesome.  I got to sleep in, my family gave me a great gift, the wife made me caramel rolls…

(Another side note.  The wife making me caramel rolls is something really special.  When we first started dating, she was living in Minneapolis and I was living in Reno, NV.  I went to a buddy’s wedding in Iowa so I flew into Minneapolis to see her before going to the wedding.  On the morning I was supposed to drive down to the wedding, she made me caramel rolls.  I’m a neat freak when it comes to cars and I was running a little late on my departure for the wedding, so I didn’t want drive while eating these gloriously sticky caramel rolls.  I should have just stayed and had some, but since I was concerned about being late to the wedding, I turned down the caramel rolls and hit the road.  Yes, I’m an idiot.  She ended up eating them with her roommates and probably questioning our relationship.  Looking back, I’m lucky she agreed to marry me.  We’ve been married almost 9 years and I can count the number of times she’s made those caramel rolls on like three fingers, plus, the story gets rehashed.)

Anyway, I got to sleep in, my family gave me a great gift, the wife made me caramel rolls, we went to church, I picked up a Marcy Playground CD I had ordered from the second-hand music store, and we came home.  Then, we had lunch, the wife put Tiny down for her nap while Littles and I played Nintendo, then the wife and Littles had some quiet time while I got to take a nap.  That’s the best gift ever.  I love a good Sunday afternoon nap.

When we woke up, the wife played with the kids and I made dinner.  The day before, the wife had asked me if I wanted to have anything special to eat for Father’s Day, and I told her I wanted breakfast for dinner and that I’d make it; so we had pancakes, eggs, and sausage.  I bet the wife thought it was kind of strange that I would make dinner on Father’s Day because it’s strange when I make dinner on any day.  For example, I’m usually in charge of dinner on Saturday nights, and a lot of times, that means we’ll be going out to eat.  Plus, I’m not good in the kitchen.  Breakfast is the only meal I can make well.

I know why I offered to make dinner on Father’s Day.  I knew the wife wanted to give me an “easy” day because it was Father’s Day.  She’d make meals, take care of the kids, give me a nap, etc.  In fact, there were a number of times today when I was doing things like changing diapers, or doing dishes, and she would say, “You shouldn’t be doing that, it’s Father’s Day.”  The reason I did those things and made dinner is I knew I didn’t have to.  She would have done them for me to show me that she appreciates me, but I already know that.  My family shows me they appreciate me every day and I just wanted to celebrate Father’s Day by being a father and spending time with my family.

I am grateful for everything the wife and my kids did for me today.  They gave me a totally relaxing day, just like I wanted; and I also got to be a dad and father.  It was an amazing Father’s Day.  Thank you, honey.

 

 

 

(Listening to “Sherry Fraser” by Marcy Playground)

About a week ago, the wife and I decided it was time for Littles to have a pedal bike.  She has been zipping around on her Strider Balance Bike for a while now and we figured this was the next step.  So, we took her to Target to pick out her “big girl bike.”

Picking the bike out was the biggest deal for her and there were a lot of different options.  There was an Anna and Elsa bike from “Frozen,” there was a Disney princess bike, and there was a Lightning McQueen bike.  I knew which bike she was going to pick.  As the dad of two girls, I’ll admit, sometimes Littles and I do things I enjoy like skateboard, snowboard, watch sports, and listen to music, because I want her to be interested in those things so we can do them together.  Even when Littles was a baby, I’d dress her in camouflage, sports team t-shirts, Wonder Woman outfits, and skateboarding shoes, hoping to ignite those interests.  She does like those things, but, somewhere along the line, this girl fell in love with princesses and dresses, so we have fun with those too.    Based on that, I knew which bike she was going to pick.  Princesses it was!  We bought the bike and took it home.

Littles biggest concern may have been getting the princess bike, but my biggest concern was getting her to ride it.  This is where my nerves kicked in.  I want her to like it and I really don’t want her to get hurt.  Call it my protective instincts, I guess.  I worry about the getting hurt part more because I know she’ll eventually enjoy riding a bike.  It’s just something kids learn, like going potty and dressing themselves.  I don’t know many kids that went to college and didn’t know how to ride a bike.  The getting hurt part, well, that’s different.  She’s my little girl and I don’t want to see her get hurt.

All of that aside, I started putting the bike together.  Since she had been cruising around on her balance bike, with ease, we opted to leave the training wheels in the box.  Once we got it put together, I had her sit on it.  The bike is a little bit big for her; she can barely touch the ground while sitting on the seat. Because of that, I figure she’ll have a hard time starting and stopping, but we’ll figure it out.

The time to ride had come, but nature had other plans.  A thunderstorm swept through the area, so we’d have to wait.  So, we did something else she loves to do.  We baked.  Momma got out the ingredients and the ladies made muffins.  Yum!

In typical Colorado fashion, the storm blew through in about 30 minutes.  Now it was time to ride!  Littles put her helmet on and we all took the bike out to the cul-de-sac.  With mom and Tiny looking on, I held the bike in place while Littles got on.  She looked a little uneasy because she couldn’t touch the ground, but I told her that I wouldn’t let go until she said it was okay.  That seemed to reassure her.  At that point, I don’t know who was more nervous, her or me, but she started to pedal and I ran beside her, holding the seat, and making sure she didn’t fall.  We’re rolling around our cul-de-sac, and after about 30 yards, Littles said, “Okay daddy, let go!”  I replied, “Really?” She responded in a serious and concentrating tone, “It’s okay, I think I got it, let go.”  Now, it wasn’t like one of those scenes in the movies where the parent let’s go and the kid rides around like they’ve been doing it for years.  I did let go, but I was right there, running along side her, ready to catch her if she started wobbling; and that’s exactly what she did.  At the end of the cul-de-sac, she had to turn, and she began to wobble.  I was able to grab the seat, telling her she needed to keep pedaling and reminding her to steer just like she does on her strider.  We get back to our original starting point, I held the seat as she came to a stop so she didn’t fall, and she looked at me and said, “Again!”

We got ready for lap number two.  I held her up to start, she climbed on the bike, she started pedaling, and this time, I just let go.  She’s pedaling and steering and I cautiously took a couple of steps back to snap a picture.  She’s doing it all by herself.  She’s smiling and saying, “look at me!” But again, I’m close by to catch her in case she starts to wobble. She navigated the turn at the end of the cul-de-sac, kept on pedaling, and just when she got back to the starting point, she began to slow down and wobble.  As she tried and failed to put her foot on the ground, a look of uncertainty and fear came across her face.  I saw this and caught her before she could tip over.  She said, “Whoa.  That was a close one, daddy.”  I tell her that it was, but that she did it all by herself, she’s a big girl, and I’m proud of her.  She gave me a smile of approval and asked if we can do it again.  This happened a couple of more times and then she asked if she could ride her strider.  We got it out of the garage and she cruised around all by herself.

I don’t know what I expected.  Maybe I did have that Hollywood experience in the back of my mind where the kid just starts riding the bike like an old pro, but I know I wasn’t counting on it.  There’s a lot to learn between pedaling, starting, braking, steering, and stopping.  I tried to think back to when I learned how to ride a bike, but I can’t remember.  She has the balance down and I’m sure the rest will come once she’s a little bigger and with a little practice.  By the end of the summer, I’ll probably be trying to keep up with her.

At bedtime, she’s all tucked in, and she tells me that she really likes her bike and asks if she can ride it again.  I say, “Of course!” and she just smiles in approval.  Overall, it was a successful first day of riding a big girl bike.  She liked it, and she didn’t get hurt.  Plus, I had to “let go” for the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

 

(I’m listening to “Wishlist” by Pearl Jam)

I have a small collection of vinyl records.  No, I’m not a vinyl snob.  I won’t get into a debate about “what sounds better.”  I just like buying a vinyl record every now and then.  The hobby, if I can call it that, started a few years ago when I purchased a record player as a Christmas gift for the wife.  She had found Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at a garage sale and wanted to listen to it, so, I bought her a record player.  Slowly, I started using the record player more and more, and soon, I found myself buying records.

I really enjoy vinyl for a few reasons.  The first reason is nostalgia.  Vinyl reminds me of a simpler time.  No cell phones, no internet, no iTunes; I just put the needle on the record, listen, and relax.  Second, I like more music listening to vinyl.  I can’t just put the record player on repeat and “wear out” a good song.  I actually have to listen to the whole record, so I end up liking more songs from said record.  Call it old-fashioned delayed gratification.  Third, vinyl sounds amazing.  I have purchased some of my favorite albums on vinyl and it’s like I’m listening to them for the first time.  It’s hard to explain, but I feel like the sound has more depth.  The highs are higher and the lows are lower.  It’s like I had been missing something until I listened to them on vinyl.

When first started buying vinyl, I did make a couple of unofficial rules: One, I could only buy music that was originally released on vinyl, and two, I had to buy vinyl at garage sales to avoid paying $40 or $50 for a record.  I stuck to them for a while, but they have both been broken.  I blame Led Zeppelin.  The wife bought me Led Zeppelin IV for a gift, and since then, I’ve been hooked.  Technically, that album did follow both rules.  It was originally released on vinyl, and since I didn’t buy it, I wasn’t in violation rule two; not that it mattered.  I put it on and I heard it in a whole new way.  I heard guitar riffs I had never heard before.  It was like Jimmy Page was playing two guitars at the same time.  “Stairway to Heaven” had never sounded so clear.  “Going to California” had picking in it I had never heard.  “Four Sticks” sounded like John Bonham was using eight sticks to play it, and Robert Plant sounded like he was in my living room.  That was all it took.  I violated rule two when I purchased Led Zeppelin II.

Rule one was still in tact, but after hearing Led Zeppelin, I started thinking about other music that would sound more amazing.  So, I broke rule number one with Pearl Jam’s “Vitalogy” and the downward or upward spiral into vinyl, depending on how you want to see it, began.  One of my favorite songs off of that album is called”Nothingman.” If you love that song and haven’t heard it on vinyl, you need to.  The chords just pop and the guitar strums hang in my ear for an extra fraction of a second before changing.  It’s really beautiful.

Vinyl is making a comeback and with so many great albums being reissued, I have a new rule.  If I buy a vinyl record, it has to have some sort of memory attached to it.  That’s led me to purchase albums like, Pearl Jam “Ten,” Pearl Jam “Yield,” Nirvana Unplugged, Oasis, Green Day, Coldplay, Hootie and the Blowfish, Temple of the Dog, and other albums from my youth.  My two latest purchases are the “Singles” Soundtrack, and Third Eye Blind.  They’re in the mail as we speak and I can’t wait to listen to them.  All of these albums have some sort of good memory attached to them.  The memories could be a funny story from college, times spent with friends, road trips, or the song I was listening to on the plane when I met my future wife, and they are all special to me, so that’s the rule.

The reason for the “new rule” is simple.  Music is an outlet for me.  I’m a dad most of the time, but music reminds me of when I was just a human.  Now, I’ll never be just a human again, and thankfully so because I love being a dad; but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sometimes feel good to take off the “dad hat” for a few minutes.  It helps me reset, gives me a break, renews my energy, and in the end, makes me a better dad!  And that’s the point.  Certain music reminds me of great memories I have of a time when responsibilities were low, cares were cast aside, and time was limitless.  Sometimes, I just need to stop thinking about the bills that need to be paid, that important business presentation, the chores that need to be done, the house that needs to be fixed, or the upcoming schedule for the week.  Listening to music gives me that break, and, it just happens to sound better on vinyl.