Dad Entry #57

We went sledding twice last weekend. For the record, we didn’t go small. Picabo Street would’ve wiped out on this hill. It was steep. And fast. The kids found it a bit scary at first and would only go with an adult. Sara and I were eager to be their copilots. For a couple of reasons. First of all, we like sledding too. And second, well, let me explain: on Saturday, a pair of girls showed up and took off down the hill together. They spun out and flipped over badly on their first run. One of the girls cried, said she couldn’t move her arm, and was immediately escorted home – or to the ER – by her mother. On Sunday, we arrived to find the EMT’s there with an ambulance and fire truck. A girl had crashed and then jettisoned her lunch; I heard an EMT comment to his colleagues he suspected concussion or abdominal trauma. Yeah, most of the hill was fast, so we kept adult arms tightly wrapped around Megan or Michael. But, eventually, Michael wanted to go by himself. He survived (we sent him down a gentler slope). That was on Saturday. On Sunday – no doubt after 24 hours of psyching herself up – Megan gave it a shot, too. I know she was thinking about crossing ‘solo sled run’ off of her ‘daring to-do list’ because of what she said right after she finished. I was there to ‘catch her’ at the bottom of the hill. She popped up and said, “This summer I’m gonna jump off the diving board now and Aunt Gretchen will be proud of me.” Yes she will! With 'sledding' checked off – and with a kind of renewed or validated sense of courage – Meg had immediately moved to her next challenge. Good girl. Get after that list! I told Papa Mike all of this, including the injuries, and he commented that when they were kids, they had those old-school sleds with steel runners. Of course, the picture he painted involved bloody lacerations and lost limbs. No doubt, like everything else – except for little things like the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment – sledding was tougher then too.

Megan is suddenly fond of the word ‘expert’. While reading a book with a butterfly in it, she blurted, "I am an expert about butterflies." Then she paused and added, "And Michael is an expert about Star Wars." I thought it funny she said 'an expert about' instead of 'an expert on'. Who knows, maybe she's correct, and the way I say it is wrong. Regardless, I love to hear very young people feeling their way around language. Sometimes they misuse or incorrectly alter a phrase or cliche. And then, my favorite, sometimes they come up with an ingenious new way of describing or conveying something very typical or common. Like when Meggie told me, "Daddy, you have a stinky chin." She was indicting me for bad breath.

Megan has her flaws – she is too cute for example – but one of them is not selfishness (if you ask me). She offers Michael her candy, gum and stickers. She attempts to show Michael things, to share with him, and even do things for him on occasion, like make or get something for him. By the way, I asked Megan what her favorite thing from Santa was. Her answer? Gum. Santa put a pack in her stocking. With that in mind, Santa might not bring her so many toys next year.

We came to my office a couple Sundays ago in hopes of ‘sneaking in’. This is how I billed the excursion to the kids, I wasn't sure about security, if we could go in or not. When I am alone, I can come and go 24-7 for work. Of course, it's different for guests. So Michael, Meggie and I arrived and I ‘badged’ us in. This means I put my badge on a sensor which activates an otherwise locked, electronic door. Then all three of us crammed into a slot in the revolving door and shuffled our way around. I held Megan and Michael stood in front of me. Anyway, once in, I felt relief until I looked up and was greeted by a security guard. I recognized him, and vice versa; I chat with them once in a while. The guard advised us we couldn’t go further, that the kids were too young to come in without an approval form which I didn't have. Megan, rather confidently – and uncharacteristically as she is normally very shy around big strangers – looked right up at our imposing adversary and said, “Well, we were going to sneak past the security guards.” Believe me, in today’s competitive technology environment, the protection of designs and intellectual property is not taken lightly. I assured the guard that Megan had no intention of telling Apple or Google or any of our competitors about the cutting-edge, whiz-bang stuff she would see inside. Regardless, we couldn't go further and the kids were REALLY disappointed.