This past weekend during the snow blizzard in the Mid Atlantic, I’m really not sure who had the most fun, the boys are myself? There was a lot of laughing that is for sure going on at the house.
The boys asked to do a few things:
- Make snow angles
- Make snow prints like dinosaurs
- Make a snowman
- Make snow cream
- Have a snowball fight
Well, 4 out of 5 things from that list got completed, which really isn’t a bad odds, especially when we are talking about guys. So, we didn’t make a snowman and it wasn’t for a lack of trying, but the snow was too light to make the base. It was hard even getting a good snowball formed, but with enough pressure, we got those made.
What I’ve learned about being a dad is that sometimes, you just have to live in the moment. Yes, I was working the entire weekend, making updates to our corporate websites, but we were also doing a lot of laughing. And it was during the course of the weekend that I realized how much of that fun that my father missed out on with me. He did have snowball fights with me and he certainty would not have let me win, which is what I did. He wouldn’t have taught me to make snow cream or make gigantic foot prints in the snow like dinosaurs.
What I’m realizing the most about being a parent, is being there in the moment with them. Being able to teach them things, like I showed them how to make scrambled eggs this past weekend. That is an important life skill. And I hope that by sharing some of my knowledge for cooking, which help teach them to focus on details sometimes and other times, through caution into the wind and change things up a little. But what I’ve really learned, is that I hope that my boys have as much fun as I do when we are together and that they pass their love of laughing and having fun when they are fathers.
Parenting is hard work. While my wife was gone, it was just me. Now, I’ve been alone with the boys for up to 5 days before alone, but this time was different. This time, there was an added level of stress with shoveling, extra cooking and cleaning and working, but thinking ahead if we were to lose power, etc.
And something else, I have a new found respect for single parents, as I have no idea how they do it all the time and do everything.