Notes on Back-to-School Daze in the Dadhood

- Approaching autumn, and the bitter-sweet Back-to-School season is tickling once again at the goofiness center of my paternal brain-box…

- All three of my daughters, who have for the last three months treated sleep as though it were an elective, will be forced to return to a schedule bearing some semblance to normality. My efforts during this past summer in this regard have taught me a stern lesson: At the same time children develop the ability to reason (i.e., the need for rest to growing bodies), they develop the ability to refuse to abide by it…

- Then there is this semi-annual Hell called “Back-to-School Shopping”.

I say “semi-annual” because; through some process of karmic attrition, 90% of what is bought today will have to be replaced by the second semester.

I hear you, fellow parents... No, I don’t know how it happens either, but it does.

- Marina is in her senior year of high school. Eden is starting 6th grade in middle school.

These facts represent two diametrically opposed priorities and fashions that cannot be ignored, and which will, due to youthful exuberance and insistence, undoubtedly leave me dazed and penniless on the floor somewhere in the Boulevard Mall, clutching my chest and whispering. “Rosebud…”

- Samantha, my eldest, fortunately is working and attending community college. So far, she has asked nothing financial of me. Therefore, she has retained her place in my Will (or my “Won’t”, as we laughingly refer to it when speaking of my impending demise during family get-togethers).

- So now, the moment of truth. I don my Suit of Lights: Sneakers, cut-offs and my “Don’t Ask Me, I Live Here” t-shirt (to bewilder the tourists; this is Las Vegas, after all).

- I have given my “Day-trip-by-CAT-bus” instruction lecture (see earlier posting), which will be studiously ignored by all and sundry, and I have made out a strict shopping list of required educational items (likewise). I’m ready!

And we are off…

- Tally-ho!

It's Showtime in the Dadhood!

“ALL CITY Water Show”, the hand-out read, “Hosted by the City of Las Vegas”.

I knew that Eden, my youngest, had been going twice each week to the local public pool for “synchro-swimming class” since school let out for the summer, but I did not expect the aquatic equivalent of a dance recital!

Most of you know what I mean. Those presentations that are meant to be the pay-off to parents for their investments of money, time and patience so that their children may nurture whatever latent gifts they may possess in the creative arts.

Actually, latest studies indicate that attending such events releases a heretofore unknown hormone into the system that induces a short-lived form of schizophrenia which presents in an outward affect of a rictus, almost maniacal, smile combined with an obsessive-compulsive need to clap one’s hands and nod one’s head approvingly, regardless of the quality of the stimulus. Internally, the parent-subject endures a Battle Royal of primal emotions: Apprehension, Magical Thinking, Empathic Stress, Boredom, Self-Loathing (for being bored), Fight-or-Flight Syndrome accompanied by its manager, the Stopped Clock Illusion, among others. All combined in a Steel Cage Match to the Death (or the end of the show, whichever comes first).

As you may expect, last night I sat dutifully through the entire show with a smile that would have made the Joker envious, clapping like a seal on Ritalin and wondering silently just how pruney these children have to get before the whole thing is raided by Child Protective Services for over-saturation of minors.

When Eden’s team came on, of course, the hormone took over and I was dazed and amazed at the wonderfulness of her talent and aptitude as she swam, splashed, rolled and kicked her way through the routine. Then I made the startling historical connection: Eden’s grandfather, Danny, my dad, once worked as a stage manager for Billy Rose’s Aquacades in New York City, back in the 1930’s.

I heard myself proclaiming loudly to those around me, “Sure, she’s a natural. It’s all in the genes!!!” Ahem… yes, well... I’m feeling much better now…

And I praised my little girl to the skies, to her and anyone who would listen, because that’s how we roll in the Single Dadhood. We understand that, as a side benefit, the hormone also causes any memory of noticeable flaws to disappear, while magnifying to our eyes and embossing upon our hearts, the sheer joy in those little performing faces at the chance to entertain us.

Thankfully, for them and us, that is what we are graced to remember at the last…