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A BOY AND HIS STICK
Brent Almond, Kensington, MD
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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Instead of trying to corral him within the confines of the play area, I decided to follow my son’s lead —and even encouraged him —in exploring beyond its borders. We were once again searching for the bad guy. It does not matter to my memory who it was … but it was Shredder, in case you were wondering.
I followed my boy, who was armed with just a stick. I say “just a stick,” but in the hands of a four-year-old, it can be just about anything – a lightsaber, a bow staff or a magic wand. Today it was a womper. No use looking that up, since it sprang from my young co-adventurer’s search engine. I felt the tension ease as I unclenched my jaw, lowered my parental guard and let Jon and his imagination be the guide.
Less than an hour before, he’d had yet another mealtime meltdown, intensified by a long weekend of play and compounded by relentless flurries of pollen, exhausting non-stop sniffling and constantly watering eyes. After being told every five minutes to not rub his eyes, and to blow or wipe his nose, he had grown weary of being bossed around by his dads and Mother Nature.
This particular food-related fit was a good reminder of what goes on inside his head —he was struggling against us setting boundaries and wanted to be in charge, if only for a moment. It was also a good reminder that logic does not always play a part in his thought process.
The specifics of the meltdown are also not important … but it involved the continued smashing of a peanut butter sandwich, in case you were wondering. It also involved the smashed half sandwich being thrown away, leaving a perfectly intact half —one which my wailing child could not be convinced to eat because, obviously, he wanted the mangled one in the garbage.
His teachers had told us he was still struggling to grasp the concept of “if/then” as he was still deeply entrenched in the “all/now” way of thinking.
Certain he was exhausted and had no spark of energy left, I offered up a trip to the park, if only for a change of scenery and mood. I was sure I saw his eyes droop and head nod at one point during the winding drive through the woods to the park. But, like a self-charging battery, he was revved up to go the minute we stepped out of the car.
After the requisite round on the merry-go, a quick trip to the rock-climbing wall and down every slide, we set off in search of our evildoer, armed only with a dirty stick and Jon’s steely resolve. We also had to find one for me.
No, that one’s too short. That one’s too dirty. That one’s too crooked … There Daddy. Get that one!
No buddy, that’s a log.
Once we were both brandishing suitable wompers, we continued to walk —past a big, muddy puddle, pretending it was a swamp, across a dirt path covered in caterpillars, and around several felled logs. I astounded my traveling companion by jumping up and catching a dried vine hanging from a tree. Breaking it in half, this enabled us both to have even longer, more whip-like wompers. While infinitely cooler than our previous weaponry, I soon had to make these shorter as they kept getting flung around and endangering the wheels of oncoming cyclists as well as my shins.
We stopped and looked up at the sky, marveling at how tall the trees were. We knelt and made a path for the caterpillars to cross through the dirt, pausing in search of a helicopter buzzing behind the forest canopy, which we concluded was a prehistoric mosquito.
I was thoroughly enjoying this adventure, dropping the tether altogether, willing to let it go as far as he wanted to go. As far as we could go.
But then, as we looked up ahead, and I wondered aloud if what’s-his-name was behind the bridge crossing over the creek, Jon stopped. Suddenly my heroic halfling sensed the scope of our trek, declared we had gone too far from the playground, and we needed to go back.
So I complied, and we turned around to retrace our steps. We glanced at the worms still crossing their dirt path, threw our wompers into the woods as far as they could be flung, and trudged through the big field of clover separating our journey from the playground. At his behest, we stopped for a few minutes to sit and dig some dandelions out of the earth so he could give me a flower before racing the rest of the way to the car.
I had begrudgingly suggested this outing, hoping it would be prevented by sleep, or fearing it would end in tears. Instead, it entailed a few minutes of freedom —freedom for my son from the rules and limitations of his very tall, strict world; and freedom for me from the stress of being so tall and so strict.
And though it is not vital to this tale, we never did catch the bad guy. He is still out there, lying in wait for a brave, wandering pair to discover him … in case you were wondering.
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Brent Almond a graphic designer, writer, husband, and father. He combines all of these on his blog www.DesignerDaddy.com which was recently honored as a BlogHer14 Voices of the Year. More of Brent’s writing can be found on The Huffington Post, The Good Men Project, The Parents Project, and Fandango Family. He also serves on the board of Rainbow Families DC, an organization that supports LGBT families. Brent lives in the Washington DC metro area with his husband, 5-year-old son, and their pre-Obama Portuguese Water Dog.
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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