Peanutmaggeddon

A group of friends of mine from high school and I are in a fantasy football league. We started it a few years ago and have awarded 2 champions. It's a wonderful way to connect during the football season, and fun to banter with old friends. I am the commissioner, and we do not yet play for money, solely for connection and a large trophy that gets sent to the winner, and a small one for the last place finisher.

In 2015/16 season, I won the championship. It was hard fought if one can fight hard for a fantasy trophy, and really the result of several last minute waiver wire pick ups which put me over the top in the championship. As a result of winning, the previous year's champion must have my name engraved on our trophy, and ship it safely to me for a years display in my home. Last year's champion took his sweet time shipping out the award I should say, I think he may value the "Sooper Chargers Fantasy Football Trophy" a bit more than the several daytime emmy's he has won, but I can't yet prove the theory and likely never will. Fun story, through his work, he was able to show the trophy to one of the players he drafted, so me and Kevin Bacon just got a little closer on the degrees of separation chart I'm sure. Anyways;

In a twist of devious, because he rolls like that, he packed the trophy in a gigantic oversized box filled with those horrendous white packing peanuts. Gigantic oversized box, filled with white peanuts.

Anyone who does this, is intent on messing up your home, don't be fooled by claims of "I didn't know any better". Specifically, they have a master plan which involves static and foam plastering themselves to everything, and making it look like Christmas inside your residence.

Mankind has made it to the moon, mastered aerial flight, cured Polio, and we have not yet moved past peanut packaging.

So as all adults know, you do not let your children rip open these boxes, lest you prepare for peanutmaggeddon. But I was at work, and the kids were at home, and my wife has never experienced this.

My daughters ripped in, finding the glorious trophy. It should have been stamped "Fragile" and been revered like the leg lamp from A Christmas Story, but I wasn't home to replay the scene. The trophy is roughly 48" high and top heavy, so if my wife decides to clean it someday and I come home to shattered pieces of a broken man sitting in a chair holding a football, I may shed a tear and get out the super glue. No, my trophy received no reverence, the box was more important. In the imaginations of a 4 and 7 year old, it immediately became a spaceship, an airplane, and a doctors office where polio was being cured I'm sure, with no regards for the peanuts.

A photo pings onto my phone at lunch time.

As if in slow motion, I watch the words, "Noooooooo" come out of my mouth as I say them, adding a few superlatives regarding my friend and then immediately phone my wife.

She leads with, "They are everywhere... your trophy arrived" Disdain, disappointment, and a clear, where do you think you are going to put that ugly trophy is apparent in her voice. I can tell she hasn't yet tried to clean these up, and has no intention to.

I consider having her close the box back up with a child in it and shipping it back to my friend. He's been married less than a few years and they are living in Hollywood with no children, it would only be fair to repay peanutmaggeddon in kind. Child protection laws, the fact I really like his wife, and the cost of shipping a child got the better of me in this decision and I deleted the text.

I finished my day at work, knowing I had more work to do when I got home and would have to wait a bit longer to sit down and have a beer on my deck to round out the night, because of peanuts. There was hope, my wife had said she would work with the kids on it before I got home.

After I walked into our garage and was preparing to enter the house, I heard sobbing and a child meltdown in progress. Peanutmaggeddon, it's like Sharknado, only real and horrible.

My oldest daughter was in tears screaming at peanuts on the floor and whining to her mother, "There are too many!" "I can't" She's not helping me" "They are everywhere" My wife was attempting to remain calm. I knew I would have to step in and resolve, but this was an interesting paradox. There certainly was a lesson in this somewhere, like, invent a non static replacement for peanuts and become a millionaire, but I had to prevent her learning the lesson of, send peanuts to anyone you want to get back at. Plus we needed to solve the peanuts issue.

It took roughly 45 minutes of my life to work through peanutmaggeddon, and I am counting the 5 times during the next week when we sat down on our furniture and a pile of peanuts and peanut particles would come squirting out from beneath the couch, forcing more cleanup.

I'm doubtful the experience will be consciously remembered by my daughters in the years to come, but someday, somewhere, they will have to ship to someone, and they will make the decision to peanut or not to peanut, let's hope they choose wisely.

Their father on the other hand, will remember peanutmaggeddon. There will come a day when they won't jump into a box of peanuts and I'm going to miss the happiness static foam in a box brings.

bvd

Daddy Daughter Dance

There are certain things that generate significant joy and excitement in my house. A few examples include when I leave my ipad home from work by accident and the kids watch Netflix, an impromptu sushi Sunday when we order California rolls and shrimp tempura for the end of week evening dinner, or perhaps a frozen yogurt or hot chocolate reward for giving their best effort in a sport or school event.

The celebrations of these moments is like passing gas by yourself in a breezy forest when compared to the exuberance my daughters have for daddy daughter dance. It's kinda a big deal.

Preparation begins months in advance. Dress shopping, coordination of tie to their dress, nails painted, hair done, dinner reservations with their crew and the other fathers, corsage orders, photos by the waterfall, and dance practice. British royalty would be impressed with the pomp and circumstance surrounding that, that is the daddy daughter dance prep.

This year, I took two young ladies to the daddy daughter dance at school, as my youngest entered K3 and became eligible to attend for the first time, and my oldest continued her tradition of letting loose in the decorated gymnasium.

As is tradition, some of my observations from the evening:

1. My daughters counted down the days to daddy daughter dance on a calendar for the last several weeks. Santa, you have anticipation competition, you better bring it this winter...

2.  Whether you are buying kobe beef or mac and cheese, I'm convinced it is genetically programmed from birth, when a girl puts on a pretty dress, that they cannot eat everything on their plate at dinner, but will need a snack at the club later that evening.

3. You know it's going to be a good night when the bartender asks your date, "juice box, water, cookie, or carmel corn sweetie?"

4. Michael Jackson is laughing in his leather pants and sequins. 4 year olds already know how to dance to "Billie Jean" and the 40 year old dads try to throw a hip out to it still. I'm convinced the fountain of youth could be buried somewhere in the chords of PYT or Thriller.

5. I now know it is entirely unfair to compete in a limbo contest against 3' tall 6 and 7 year olds. They literally bend backwards in half while smiling.

6. You know you had a good night at any age, when you walk from the dance club to your car with two girls in your arms.

7. I'm convinced Cockroaches and the Macarena could survive a nuclear holocaust.

8. Had I been interested in retiring the national debt, I could have sold the amazing miniature shoe collection by the door where they were discarded immediately upon arrival at the dance.

9. It's still worth it to ask for the last dance of the evening.

10. There is nothing like locking eye smiles and knowing your dance partner cares only that you are there, and could care less about anything else at that moment in time.

11. If you have never danced with your daughter(s), I highly recommend trying it sooner rather than later. There is nothing like hearing that her favorite part of the night was when she got to dance with you.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

bvd

Baggy Pants

I have calves that are abnormally large.

A client once saw me golfing in shorts, and gave me the nickname, Van Calves, as a play on my last name. This moniker is now printed on the back of a hockey jersey I own. While on vacation with my wife, a newly wed couple we first met on a beach, came over once and introduced themselves. The wife, led with, "My god those are huge calves!" I was flattered and flushed in the same instant. More recently, I was asked by a tailor if "I noticed that the ham hocks behind my shins stuck out farther than my posterior". I purchased some pants from him for his honesty and then made it his problem to fix the disproportions.

It was quite easy growing up ordering loose fit khaki's or baggy leg levi's and letting the chips fall where they may. Sure, it was impossible to pull up my socks past my ankles, and I've certainly stretched out a few pants cuffs trying to move them past my gastrocnemius muscle, but my gastro-enormicus calf didn't seem to mind, and Kohl's always has a clearance rack. Living in California, one simply doesn't wear long pants unless you are attending your own funeral, a wedding not on a beach, or the weather drops below 60 and you think the ocean has frozen over. When I moved back to WI, I found that it was even simple to overcome my desire to avoid wearing pants in winter. I purchased the warmest set of hunting boots I could find, Sorel's, that were made to allow insulated snow wear to be tucked in to the boot just below the knee. If one wears Sorel's up to the knee, and a pair of board shorts from the waist down, there is less than 2" exposed to the frozen air. Man problem solved, shoveled many a driveway wearing these and never once got frostbite that I know of.

And then came baseball pants on my 4 year old mini me daughter, her first pair in the smallest size they had.

The earth has no fury like a daughter who dislikes mandatory attire

Negotiation began with, "I want to wear tights", I replied "It looks good, you look tough"  quite futile

She began to cry, with the force of a 4 year old daughter, which is worse than most metaphors
The displeasure was related to bagginess, then transitioned to specific body part complaints, forcing her mother and I to question our too soon transfer of body part knowledge as my 4 year old replayed the scene from A Christmas Story when Ralphie dropped the lugnuts. My daughter was fortunately using the correct latin words in a full sentence while bawling. She then followed up with a refusal to attend baseball.

"All the kids wear these" "Don't worry you won't get a rash" "Here, we will tuck them into your socks" "Here we will roll down the waist band and pull them up" "We need you to put these on or you cannot go" "Your whole team wears them" "You don't want to let your team down"

These were barely moving the dime with her. I literally was useless, the demon soul who was driving my child mad by making her wear baggy pants. My calf muscles likely wished I had stood up for their freedom all these years as vehemently as my daughter was now defending her right to tights.

My wife, sensing my daughter's concern over rashes and uncomfortable baggy baseball pants, moved quickly to solution. "Honey, I bet lots of athletes wear spandex under their baseball pants, let's try a pair" Spandex engaged, the baggy pants were installed with waist band rolled down, pant legs tucked into socks, socks rolled up to knees over baby enormicus calves, and the world returned to it's normal rotation and axis.

We have now made it through several games and over 2 weeks since the incident, the spandex are certainly a requirement now. I believed my wife's superpowers had resolved the issue of the baggy pantalones.

So in passing this evening, I reminded my daughter before bed that we had a baseball game tomorrow morning and she needed a good night's rest. She gave me a 14 second hug and a kiss, and loudly proclaimed, "I don't like baseball".

Odd I thought

We have had lots of fun together, enjoying the games and playing catch and hitting balls off a tee in the backyard. She had some success, lots of smiles and new friends, and seemed to be enjoying the sport. So I had to ask why she didn't like baseball.

The answer was clear and concise as it always is with her, "I have to wear baggy pants"

My calves giggled as I kissed her on the forehead, and was thankful again for the new perspective being a dad with daughters provides.

Grasshopper

Daughters in sports for a dad are a special thing. I am sure for their mother, watching her children play is awesome and in no way am I minimizing her connection or joy. For me as a father, it's a unique feeling and connection to my youth.

Both of my girls recently began playing T-ball.

Seeing your daughters dressed in knee high socks, a too large ball cap with an animal stitched on the front, her hands choked up on a tiny baseball bat over her shoulder enhancing her smile, might connect you back to days when you enjoyed smelling the fresh cut grass of the outfield in the same attire. By no means was I a baseball prodigy or did I have a distinguished career in this sport. Let me be crystal clear, had I utilized a Dominican birth certificate to play with the advantage of being 5 years older than the kids I played with, I would still be less than memorable. It does something more important for me. It brings back memories of playing catch in the yard when my step dad got home from work. We would grab gloves, head out back, and talk while trying to make the ball snap into each others worn out mitt. There was some dust in the air at picture day I may have had to deal with.

So I share a story from our littlest's first game and the enlightening discussion after the game

I volunteered to coach with another dad, and we became, the Greensboro Grasshoppers. Thankfully, I was not asked for a resume, or required to submit to a test of my baseball knowledge of any kind. I just had to enjoy teaching kids, or be willing to herd cats and take responsibility not to lose a 4 or 5 year old.

The coaching clinic for the little league program was good, a couple unique keywords and concepts they expected us to convey. Really it was a large number of dads chuckling in a room and learning how not to screw up the fun for children.

9 kids showed up smiling and ready to learn. We had several practices learning fun concepts like dragon, alligator, chicken wing, goalpost, throw... These will be the subject of a book I will someday write, just know that the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, or at least put up with our crazy ways of attempting to teach them basic concepts before our big game day. Mostly, we practiced circling the bases in the counterclockwise manner necessary to score, and worked on the team cheer, which included the standard 1,2,3 "GRASSHOPPERS" followed by a small grasshopper hop.

At opening game day, there was a certain buzz in the air as the coaches all shook hands and recapped the rules we knew and the ones we didn't. We overcame any technical difficulties like the mini foul line circle missing, and determined that even though home and visitor had sat on the wrong benches, that the commissioner wasn't going to fine us or bench our biggest stars if we decided not to rectify this, after all, making 20 four and five year olds change benches would certainly ensure we would lose a child or they would get unclothed, thinking the game was over.

If you have never witnessed 4 and 5 year olds play T-ball, I highly recommend it. In Wisconsin, in late April, it means that it will likely be 45 degrees and the children will still be wearing jackets. This makes it all the more hilarious when an ankle biter jogs towards third instead of first after cracking a solid hit. It also make the negotiation to get the kiddo to drop the bat instead of carrying it with them to first, only to be told, "I can't drop it, it's my bat and dad said I couldn't lose it or he wouldn't buy me another one" a bit more hilarious.

We had several base runners stop mid base, and turn to run towards the pitcher. Another runner decided heading towards the dugout was closer than heading to home base, I applauded the logic. It was a miracle we were capable of getting outs while on defense, but we secured 5 of them in the 3 innings we played. Of the 5, 3 related to opponent runners taking circuitous routes to the base they were supposed to go, while the entire cheering section of both teams was screaming "no the other way". No coaches or players were harmed in the game, for which we were thankful, and surprised. If you have never umpired a game, handing a 4 year old a bat is a bit like poking a bear, you know its not a good idea to be close enough to do either.

As a Dad, there is something special to be able to stand next to your daughter at home, and see her little noggin concentrate, lifting a bat too heavy for her, swinging her heart out and hoping to make contact, and then rumbling to first base with a smile. After she turns and gives the thumbs up and a wink which utilizes not only her eye, but her entire face, shoulders, and body, your heart can't be the same.

I chose to move to first base coach in the third and final inning, and I won't soon forget how special she made me feel when she belted a roller, and ran full bore to first, eyes fixed on her father. She ran through the base, into my arms giving me a giant hug.

The Tball game traditionally ends with a "base race" where both teams race around the bags in a relay to see which team was the fastest. We had 8 players for the game, the other team had 10, so we borrowed the younger 3 year old brother of the opponents for our squad after a quick interview where he indicated he was wearing his fast shoes and his dad vouched for him, and my daughter ran twice to ensure there was no cheating.

I think we lost the game and I'm sure we lost the base race but it was close. Instant replay would show that it's hard to run fast if your oversized pants are falling down.

As we got in the car, the discussion was simple.

"Did you have fun?"
"I was cold"
"What was your favorite part?"
"When I ran and gave you a hug"
"Do you like Tball?"
"I'm hungry"

Grasshoppers like to hit, hug, and eat. Father's of Grasshoppers highly recommend sharing sports with your daughters. I'm not sure at what age they stop running into your arms, but I'm gonna find out.

bvd