Back in March, my son really expressed interest in fishing. So I rigged up one of my old rods and put one of his spider toys on the line and he practiced casting in the house. We caught more that day than we have since we started fishing in the lake down the street.
As the weather warmed he's been begging to go out. I told him when it got warmer we'd go, he remembers stuff. So we went out fishing a few times. Didn't catch a thing. I've never caught anything at the lake down the street. Ever. But he doesn't care. He often pretends he caught a fish while he's reeling it in. I have to tell him that he's only reeling in a 5 year old ball of power bait. That stuff lasts awhile, right? I'll have to take him somewhere we have a better chance at catching. I wouldn't want him to catch several fish his first time out only to have get discouraged when he doesn't catch any.
I'm not going to lie though, parenting scares the shit out of me. I mentioned in yesterdays blog the accident I avoided on saturday, but could have just as easily got into. I imagined what would happen if I hadn't seen the man pulling out and swerved to avoid him. I saw the other car, I saw him, I knew timing would be critical. And we made it in time to get in front of him as he began to pull out only too look once I blew my horn. If I wouldn't have been on the defense, we'd have t-boned him. Killing him most likely. Or hitting his front end, maybe spinning my van around. I thought about what would happen to the kids in their seats. Did I have them buckled in correctly? Did I have the seats installed right? And what about me, what would have happened to me? All because some chump of an old man has forgotten to look both ways when crossing the street. And he wasn't even texting. Every day, this situations are seconds away.
While we were walking to the lake, there is a sidewalk along a stream fed by an underground spring. It's very cool, the geology in the area. There is a steep drop off about 15 feet down from the sidewalk. I noticed my son walking in his crocs (leave it alone, he likes them) and he tripped off the small edge of the sidewalk and lost his balance. He could have easily rolled down the hill. I told him to be careful and watch where he was going. As I passed the point of trip, I looked down the hill into the stream to see a log with branches sticking out of it about 12" long and pointy. Immediately my thoughts went to panic as he could have rolled down this hill and punctured his chest landing on this log. In a matter of seconds. I told him of the danger present and he said, "whoa dad, I could have had that stick put a big hole in my back!" Like it was nothing. Our son is pretty aware and cautious. Our daughter.....that's another story. And this is just the physical dangers.
What about raising them emotionally healthy? I know how much I struggle having grown up with a less than ideal situation at home. I never realized how much my home environment affected me until I had kids and a wife. I was an asshole. Still can be at times. I love my wife and kids dearly, but the way my brain responds to certain situations it makes me sound like a total self centered dick. This is a learned behavior. Self protection mode. I grew up learning it. It's tough to shake. But it can be done. It takes work though.
And what I do I do? I take my bike and travel at unsafe speeds on a bike that would fall apart if not paired with a somewhat talented rider through the woods between trees and over rocks and at any moment could plummet to my death into a rock, tree or down the side of the mountain. And I want my son to come along some day. Am I crazy? Or does the fear subside after a while? I don't even want to let him out of the yard.
That's enough parenting/emotional talk for today. I think tomorrow I'm going to talk about how fucked up the business of Jesus is. And you'll learn why i said fuck and jesus in the same sentence without giving one. :-)
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