Wednesday, June 13, 2012

It's Here!


By: Smiley Face Now

I am of course talking about the last day of school.  Putting the kids on the bus for their last day brings a smile not just to their faces, but mine as well.  It means we survived another year, the kids got a little older and more able to take care of themselves. 


I love the way my little one has come out of here shell.  She has her little friends; she jokingly teases me as much as I jokingly pretend to not understand what she is trying to tell me.  She asserts herself now.  Here is an example.  She is a peanut, reedy and skinny but can swim all day.  A year ago, she would have been visibly scared if she ended up face to face with a dog – any dog, even those she knew all her life.  Well, we got dog and that skittishness seemed to evaporate into thin air.  I told her she is the boss of the dog and she ran with it.  So much so, that the other day we were at a graduation party where the family had a large Labrador Retriever.  The dog, a friendly, gentle and good natured brute of 100+ pounds, was in heaven because people were leaving half eaten plates of food all over the yard.  Now this house had a pool and my daughter was swimming.  She saw the dog going for a plate of unattended chicken wings, knew that dogs should not eat chicken bones because they splinter very easily, and got right out of the pool, walked up right up to the dog, sternly told him NO and took the wing from his mouth and the plate from his nose.  It all happened before I could even find a place to put my plate down.  The dog licked her hand and walked off and she jumped right back into the pool.  Amazing!


I am truly blessed; both of my daughters are thriving and make me proud.  School is a positive thing in their lives and they seem to take to it naturally.  I am happy they have a break and I’m sure we will do fun things together this summer.  I am also smiling because I get 10 more minutes to sleep because my wife and I don’t have to get up quite so early to get the kids ready and all of us out the door.  Hurray for summer vacation!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Look Dad, I Can Swim


By: Smiley Face Now

One of the many joys in life happens the day you realize your kids can swim.  You no longer have to linger soggily directly at the edge of the pool or stand in cold lake water with numb feet and a sweaty brow.  You can back off just a bit, let the kids have some freedom and you can enjoy a cool drink on your lounge chair (granted, near the edge of the pool or right at the ocean’s waterline).  At some point, you are even throwing your kids into the pool or telling them to go swim (and by extension to leave you alone while you read your book).  I am happily in that magic zone.

Then I got a puppy.  Now I know intellectually that dogs can swim, but our dog had not ever had the chance yet and I was a mixture of concerned curiosity as to how the first time would go.  I envisioned a planned event with me right there, knee deep in some cold body of water, and the dog would happily splash in and start swimming.  Well that’s not how it turned out – never does.

It had been raining for two days straight with four more days of light to heavy rain forecast.  I had been lazy and not been down to our little boat at the local marina for the first few days of rain.  I also had not put the boat cover on the boat and had reached the point where the gnawing pressure of responsibility overpowered my natural inclination to blow it off.  So, grab the dog and off we go for a quick trip down the road to the marina.  Now it was not raining when I left the house, and was drizzling a bit when I parked at the marina, but the dog and I got out and headed down the dock with all intention of this being a quick, 1-2-3 trip.  By the time I get to the boat, it is raining.  The dog does not want to get into the boat and I don’t want to fight about it, so I tied her off to a cleat and went onboard.  Now this is a small boat with no cabin so setting up the cover is a simple thing, but there is one part where I usually stick my head under the canvas cover to stick a support pole in the right spot.  As I am under the cover fiddling with the pole, I hear a strange sound, not the ever increasing rain hitting the canvas.  It was more of a slow thump, thump, and thump.

I lifted my head up and in the now pouring rain realize no dog.  I climbed onto the dock and found her swimming between another boat and the dock where I had tied her off.  Luckily the current was slack and she was not pushed under the dock or between the boat and the dock to be smushed.  So I run over and grab her by the collar and yank het out of the water.  So now the dog is looking at me drenched and standing in the rain as if to say, “This was fun, do you have any other bright ideas?” 

As I drove home with the now sodden and wet dog smelly pooch in the back, I smiled as I realized of course she can swim and she didn’t need me to be there to hold her leash – just like the kids.