Shep has this thing where he drags Tom over to the piano and then he goes to get his guitar and takes a seat on the chair next to the piano. It is then Tom’s job to play Coldplay’s “Yellow” on the piano while Shep accompanies with guitar and vocals.
I will warn you that it’s very possible that your computer might implode from the insane amount of cuteness you’ll find on this link.
Sometimes when I download photos from my camera, little gems like this appear and it makes me wonder what else is going on at my house that I know absolutely nothing about.
All I know is that looks suspiciously like the tissue paper that we wrapped Tom’s Father’s Day gift in…
In general, I think I’m a pretty fun mom. We do creative activities and bake and tell stories and explore. Yet, there are times when I turn a corner and I see Tom doing something with the kids that I never would have thought of, like having a pajama jam session or turning the playgym into a big fort, and I can’t imagine who our kids would be if he weren’t in their lives. I’ve always loved that he tends to flip the world off its axis and see it from some totally different perspective, and that’s how he parents, too.
I know he’s exhausted. Three kids, two dogs, and a wife who is convinced that it’s possible to squeeze 27 hours worth of stuff into a 24-hour day must be exhausting to live with. Yet, in the midst of it all, he musters up the reserve to cook and clean and play and work and run around with his screwdriver trying to put a dent in my on-going list of to-dos. And he does it with grace and patience. And he gives me way more back rubs than I give him, and he almost never complains about it.
Of course, when auditioning for the role of “father of my children”, he had a lot to live up to, as my own dad set quite a precedent. It was a generation where dads could do very little with their kids and still get high marks for their parenting. Instead, he made up stories and baked cookies and sang songs with his guitar. When my mom went back to school, I was proud to tell my friends that my dad did the laundry and almost always made dinner, an anomaly even in our liberal crowd.
I really wanted to write a much more eloquent thing about how amazing the two of them are and how lucky I am to have them in my lives, but I typed a bunch of things and nothing came out quite right. I have this tendency to not do things because I want to say just the right thing or do it in just the right way, and then I do it late or not at all. Which is stupid. And I don’t want this holiday to go by without saying thank you.
So thank you both for filling those Father shoes, day in and out, in the very best possible way.
I have no photos of IKEA. Once we got there we got sucked into a vortex of suspiciously inexpensive, yet aesthetically pleasing, Swedish furniture which all has names with lots of umlauts, causing us to completely forget about our cameras and try to spend as much money as possible without having to rent a U-haul.
We did, however, take a few shots at the Ann Arbor farmer’s market. The market alone made me want to go home and start packing my things, not to mention the fun, artsy town and all the people who looked like they could become my best friends by lunchtime. But then I remembered the almond croissants at our farmer’s market and the free babysitting down the driveway, and that helped temper my urge to call a moving truck.
Or, in the spirit of the day, maybe I should call it a “müving truk”.
Today Susie and I left for IKEA. Somehow we managed to make a four hour drive take eight hours, but we did ultimately make it there.
(This is where there’s supposed to be a fun picture of us attending Wilco, but I forgot the camera on the car floor. Again.)
Tom was born in December, just a few days before Xmas. Which is a silly time to be born because everyone is all worked up around the coming holiday and your birthday kind of gets left in the dust.
The first few years I tried to make his birthday really special and totally independent from Xmas. But that was a whole lot of pressure for me, so we started celebrating his half-birthday in June. Which worked out really well until he became a father, and now I have his half-birthday and Father’s Day within a week of each other. I can’t win.
But this year I actually came up with some decent present ideas and we got to go to dinner and a concert, thanks to Bonnie and my mom and Doug pitching in with the kids. Brussels sprouts and getting to hold hands with your husband while enjoying good music—it kinda felt like MY half-birthday.
Today we headed to the airport playground followed by lunch at a restaurant that overlooks the airstrip.
The playground is one of our favorites. It’s huge and has tons of places to run and play, but also has this excellent fence on the perimeter, minimizing the chance that your child turns into the next Houdini. Of course, we had to laugh because with all the great playground equipment, the kids spent the most time on this ancient climbing thing in the first photo.
In the middle of it all, this amazing thing happened. Two pre-teen girls were passing a ball around, and invited our kids to play. And all of a sudden they had them all sitting in a circle listening to directions to a game and it was like some divine entity had appeared on the earth to teach “Duck, Duck, Goose” and these kids were the sole decipels commanded to carry on the legacy of this game. The power of pre-teen girls have over preschoolers is somewhat mind-boggling.
By the time we got to the restaurant it was stupid-hot, but the kids hung in there well and we even got to see a few planes and helicopters take off and land. Which makes me think that if only all restaurants had airplanes and helicopters, I might actually get to eat the food that I order. So if all my favorite restaurants could do that, that would be super, thanks.
(Photos courtesy of Susie, who actually remembered to bring her camera.)
Shep found this cardboard wrapping paper tube under the table, and once Neko had conned him out of it, she constructed her very own marble run (it goes down the chute, across the drum and into the back of the Mack truck).
If she learns how to cook and do her own laundry, we will be virtually useless to her. Although, her legs are not long enough to reach the gas pedal…yet.
