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.

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.

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

So, I figure I kind of owe him…

On Saturday, we picked up his early birthday present from Grandma, his very own play set, and started to piece it together. The process was slowed because of some passing showers, dinner, and having put the slide together as part of Step 1 and then holding it up so Junior could take a few practice runs. After we put him down to bed, the Mrs. and I went back out to try to finish the job. By about 8:30, we broke out the flood lights, and we continued working until around 11. While we didn’t finish until the next afternoon because of…let’s call them inconsistencies between my assembly and the instructions in the manual, we finished it early enough on Sunday for him to get a few good runs in.

Musical Guest: Jason Mraz

Lyrics: Open up your door and then breathe free. Look at all the beauty and you’ll find that the earth and the sky is yours.

The Lesson: Turn off the TV, put down the video game controller, and go outside. I’m blessed that one of the words that Junior is proficient with is “outside”, and we have spent a lot of our time this summer outside.

Musical Guest: Will.I.Am

Lyrics: There’s nothing I can’t achieve, because in myself I believe.

The Lesson: Know that you are wonderful, beautiful, and special, and you can do anything you want to do.

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