Junior and I put together a little video as an exercise for me to get some of the rust off my video gear. It’s rough, but it was fun making, and it’s fun watching Junior smile as he watches it. Enjoy.

You can read more about this video (and me finally getting off my read-end to do something) over at the photography blog.

A few weeks ago, I took my son to his first hockey game.

Hockey was a big part of my childhood. I was never on a team myself, but the fire department used to flood the softball fields in the park near our house and we used to play hockey there. I remember my father taking me to see Hartford Whaler games, which were some of my favorite memories of him. Actually, they are some of my only memories with him. But they’re not really memories of him. I know he was the one that took me, but when I close my eyes and remember those games, I see the crowd, and the players, and the food, and everyone cheering, but I don’t see him.

One of my greatest fears being a father myself is to repeat the mistakes that my father made. For those of us without perfect parents, we often enter parenthood with the mindset of doing the exact opposite of what our parents did. “I’ll never do that with my kids.” “When I’m a father, I’m going to do things differently.” But I think, more often than not, that we repeat what we know. It’s involuntary. Maybe environmental. Maybe genetic. But that way of life, those habits, they pull at us like we’re tethered to them with a rubber band. The further we pull away, the harder they tug us to bring us back to them

It’s scary. It’s scary to think that you’re going in with the right intentions, to do right by your son, and that you’re going to do things differently, but that you can’t escape the past, and that the rubber band is going to pull you right back in and you’re doomed to repeat all of those mistakes, anyway.

Two years in, I still have those fears. I wonder if, 30 years from now, my son will take his child to a hockey game, and if he’ll remember going to games with me as a kid, but that he won’t remember me as a part of those memories. I wonder what things I swore I’d never do that I’m doing subconsciously, and that he’ll someday swear to never repeat with his own kids.

Maybe, just maybe, there is a way to cut the tether. I wake up every day wanting to be the best father that I can be to my son, and I’m on a continuous journey to be a better human, husband to my wife, and role model for him. Instead of him making a list of things to not do with his own children, I want him to joyously tell them of all the things that we did together as he’s doing those things with them. I want the type of relationship that I’m trying to create with my wife the type that he will strive for. I want the relationship we have with him to be the model he follows with his children. I’m not perfect, and I’m not going to get everything right, but as he grows up, I want him to know that I love him, that I’m doing my best, and that I’m always trying to do better, and for those to be the things that he’s tethered to and that he repeats with his own children someday.

It’s fatherhood, not the Peace Corp, that is the toughest job you’ll ever love.

I really like the idea behind this video out of Thailand (from a phone company, no less). It plays nicely with the blog post from Jon Acuff a few weeks back titled “How to be a better parent in 4 seconds”, which you can read here and his more recent post “How to improve your marriage instantly”, which you can read here.

Resist the urge to always be “connected”, put down your phone, and really connect with the people around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. The cashier. The dry cleaner. The waiter….

Video via Musea.

Today, we went to the Rocky Mountain Air Show in Broomfield, Colorado. It was Junior and my first air show, and it did not disappoint. Junior was severely overwhelmed at the start of the day, with a lot of people and a lot of big helicopters and airplanes…two of his favorite things. He would say he wanted to get close to and sit in the aircraft, but when we got in to them, he would start to cry and say that he did not wan’t to be in them. But then, he is two. When the air show started, he was glued to the skies. We both were. There as an amazing aerobatic display, some beautiful, vintage aircraft, a skydiver, and a number of jets. Junior started the day with “big helicopter” and “big airplane” or “big avion“, but we ended the with “big jet” and some fancy jet engine sound effects.

If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it. We’ll be there next year, for sure!