Day 1,745 - Summer Break's A-Comin'

Today kind of marked a weird day for me. You see, it’s one of those days that’s not unbelievably significant but still somewhat significant. Today was the final day that Ethan and I will spend alone before Ellie joins us for summer break. Not only that, but it’s likely the final day that the two of us will spend together before Ethan begins school in the fall. Crazy, right?

Since I had attributed so much meaning to the day, I decided to try and make it all about Ethan by basically letting him plan our day. Of course, when you tell a five-year-old that he’s responsible for planning the day, you’re sometimes met with a resounding chorus of “I don’t know.” Therefore, I ended up having to give him ideas here and there for things to do. We finally ended up with plans to go to a park in the morning and then to go to a splash pad later in the afternoon.

After dropping Ellie off at school, Ethan and I started our day off by heading to E.H. Riverfront Park in Riverside. Honestly, it’s been a while since we’ve wandered to Riverfront Park so Ethan was actually pretty stoked to get to play there. Between the three-story slide, the zip-lines, and the various things to climb, it’s one of his favorites!

When we first arrived, Ethan quickly made his way to the big slides where he took a few trips down. Then, he asked me if we could head to the zipline. Most park ziplines are pretty small and easy for kids to get on and off. Not so at Riverfront. Ethan actually needs help to initially climb up onto the seat and then after that he’s fine. Before our ziplining fun began, Ethan decided to challenge himself by taking on the ropes agility course leading to the zipline. He’s really become a fan of stuff like this since watching American Ninja Warrior on television last year. He honestly does a pretty good job at it, too. I’m continually amazed at how he deftly makes it across obstacles that it seems like he has no business attempting.

Once he finished up at the zipline, Ethan headed back to the playground to tackle that agility course which involved him climbing through a series of ropes, across floating portals, up a “rock” wall, and finally reaching solid ground on the other side. Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to the park without engaging in a little time playing soccer together. I’ve been trying to teach him the value of dribbling and passing so we spent time in the octoball pit so that he could practice making and receiving short passes.

After that, we headed home for lunch and a quiet time before our afternoon activities could commence. Around 1:00 pm, Ethan and I began getting changed into our swimsuits so that we could make our way to City Park in Liberty to play at the splash park.

Ethan’s one request for the splash park was that I actually stand under the large dumping bucket with him and get wet. While I didn’t initially think that was a big thing to ask, my mind was certainly changed when I realized just how cold the water was on this day. Eventually though, I worked up the courage to join my already-drenched son under the bucket for a dumping (even if I did sidestep most of it at the last minute).

Eventually, Ethan tired of the splash park and made his way over to the adjoining playground to dry off while playing on some more ropes courses. If you didn’t already know, Ethan definitely has a favorite kind of playground. My favorite part though was watching him continually try to leap from stone to stone in an attempt to make it through an area of the playground without touching the ground. It’s always fun how such a simple activity can activate both his imagination and his competitive streak in a never-ending quest to complete his mission.

Around 3:00 pm, I had to break it to the little man that it was time for us to head home. After all, I knew we had one more activity ahead of us for the day and I wanted us to have the opportunity to change clothes, rest, and grab some supplies for our final activity. When the time came, we headed to school to pick up Ellie and made a stop by Summer Sno Co. on the way home. You see, Ellie’s been asking to go to the snow cone stand for at least a couple of weeks and I had promised her we could on the last day of school. Since Friday is a full day, I instead chose to celebrate the last day of school on Thursday.

The great thing about Summer Sno Co. is that their snow cones are large enough for multiple people to share. As such, I generally take along some extra cups and spoons for splitting up the snow cones so that everyone can have their own. Of course, the downfall of that choice is that it normally takes a bit of time for the kids to come to a consensus on what flavor to get. Luckily on this day, it went fairly smoothly, and they decided on the special of Polynesian Punch (Pineapple, Strawberry, and Black Cherry).

Once we received our order, I split the snow cones up among the three of us and we found a shady spot to sit and enjoy our frozen treat in the shade before heading home for the day. As you can see, it certainly was a full and fun last day before summer. Unfortunately, I’ve got several more last days to celebrate in the upcoming months. Don’t worry; I’m already trying to mentally prepare myself for those lasts to come.

#DaddyWrite 

Day 1,742 - "The Soccer Star"

One of the things that I love most about Ellie and Ethan is their penchant for being active. Neither of them is particularly happy with sitting around and being lazy. They’d much rather be having fun and using their imaginations or playing some kind of game. In fact, playing games has been a consistent in our home for quite a while. There’s been lots of games of cornhole, hours of me teaching Ellie to play tennis, and plenty of rounds of catch with a baseball and a glove. Of course, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention all of the time spent tossing a football with Ethan.

Over the past month or so, our family has embraced a new game: soccer or futbol for our Spanish speaking friends. I don’t completely remember how it started but long story short, we signed Ethan up for soccer with Sporting Kansas City’s youth soccer program. I’m sure part of our thinking was that Ellie has routinely taken gymnastics classes for the past few years and maybe it would be a good thing for Ethan to have an activity of his own. I’m pretty sure we told him he could play soccer or baseball but can’t confirm or deny that. The end result was that he picked soccer and as such, found his new favorite sport!

It's honestly been really fun to watch Ethan’s understanding and skill for “the Beautiful Game” grow over the past few weeks. Early on, his only goal was to kick the ball. As the weeks went by though, he developed his ability in moving the ball downfield and especially in defense. Seriously, I don’t know a ton about soccer but I can truthfully say that the kid is a menace to other players when it comes to defense. He even had another player call him a bully due to his propensity for hustling downfield and routinely stopping potential goals.

Yesterday actually marked Ethan’s final game of the season. Going into the final game, Ethan’s team, the Gray Wolves, sat with a record of 2 – 3. If you know Ethan at all, then it’s no surprise to hear that he was extremely unsatisfied with that record. On more than one occasion, he actually complained to Bethany and me about his teammates not giving their all. Honestly, that was a good opportunity to teach him about the concept of winning and losing as a team.

Lucky for Ethan’s competitive nature, the entire team seemed to be on the same page for the game yesterday. It was as if they all knew it was their final chance to end the season on a high note. Ethan put on his normal masterful defensive performance which included some last-minute blocks of what otherwise would have been an easy goal for the Green Grasshoppers. The highlight though had to have been watching him deftly weave his way down the field and score a goal all by himself while his teammates were laying on the ground.

When the final whistle rang, the score of the game was 4 to 3 in favor of Ethan’s squad. Honestly as I watched Ethan get his medal symbolizing the end of a fun season, I was a little bummed. I’ve had a great time watching him play over the past few weeks. Never fear though as we’ve already signed him up for the Fall season. I’m honestly excited to see how he improves once that time comes as he’ll actually be having full practices one night a week prior to his games on the weekends. It’s going to be fun!

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,740 - Field Days and Last Days

This was a fairly momentous week for Ethan as it pertains to his time at school. It definitely deviated from the norm in quite a few ways. Of course, that happens when one has a field day on Tuesday followed by their final day of K-Prep on Thursday. For the record, that’s a pretty weird thing for me to wrap my head around at this juncture. Seriously, he’ll start kindergarten in three months! Crazy, right?

One of my favorite things about being a stay-at-home dad over the past couple of years is that it lends itself to me getting to be a part of things like field day. For example, I’ve gotten to take the opportunity to head to Fox Hill for Ellie’s field day the past two years. I even found myself in a dunk tank last year. I think I successfully avoided that activity this year though. Taking all of that into account, it was a foregone conclusion though that I would help with Ethan’s field day.

As we normally would, Ellie and I dropped Ethan off at his school a little before 8:00 am and then headed home to hang out together for an hour. After I took Ellie to school at 9:00, instead of heading home, I headed to Ethan’s school for field day. Over the course of the two hours, I would have two jobs. The first hour, I was running kickball bowling; a fairly simple concept consisting of kicking a ball towards a set of bowling pins. While I thought it seemed simple, I underestimated just how exhausting that event could be. I never considered how I would have to squat down hundreds of times to replace pins over the course of the hour. While kids certainly had fun with the event, I was fairly happy when it ended. That being said, I was more than a little disappointed that Ethan never visited my station during that hour.

Next up for me was the ring toss. Honestly, it was a much simpler event. That’s probably the case because I got smarter at this station and would encourage kids to retrieve three rings after every turn before handing them over to the next in line. Good idea, right? Once again though, I never got the opportunity to see Ethan at my station.

Don’t feel too bad for me about missing Ethan. The ring toss event actually wrapped up early which left me with the opportunity to wander over to the obstacle course where Ethan’s purple-emblazoned class were taking turns running it. Unfortunately for the folks running the station, Ethan somehow missed that the concept of an obstacle course was to conquer said obstacles with agility and swiftness. Instead, Ethan saw fit to blast through the obstacles much as the proverbial bull in a China shop would.

Fast forward to today and Ethan’s final day of K-Prep. As part of an end of year celebration, Ethan got to wear pajamas, eat cheese pizza and popcorn, and watch the movie, Finding Dory. Pretty fun stuff. I was honestly pretty proud of myself for remembering that today was the final day of school so that I could take our traditional last day of school photo before dropping him off.

It was honestly kind of a sad day though. For one thing, I hate the idea of Ethan having to say goodbye to all of his friends and teachers knowing that as a public-school student, he likely won’t see any of them moving forward. For another, Ethan has spent most of the year bestowing the sweetest hugs upon Ellie and me as we drop him off for class. Today though, he was so excited that he didn’t even remember the hug. That’s ok though, it just serves as a small reminder that I probably won’t get a hug once he starts kindergarten in a few months.

That being said, I’m grateful for this season of life. It’s been a blast watching him grow in so many ways during his time at Northland Christian K-Prep. He’s become more confident in relating to others which is one of the big things we wanted to see happen during the year. He’s also learned to read more and more, write more effectively, and count really, really high. According to his teachers, he's also consistently displayed responsibility or at least that's what we learned at his award ceremony last Friday. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s ready for kindergarten in a few months.

As for me, I’m probably not ready for kindergarten to start yet. Hopefully I’ll get there though. Time will tell.

#DaddyWrite

First Day versus Last Day

Day 1,732 - Ellie and Ethan Go to the Advent Health 400

Surprises are fun. I love a good surprise. My kids, not so much. It’s not that they don’t like to be surprised; it’s more that they just like to know what’s happening at every minute of every day. They honestly get that trait from their mom. Of course, there are certain times when those surprises come up that are just too good not to share immediately.

One of those events happened on Saturday when I received a text from our pastor offering three NASCAR tickets for the Sunday Cup race at Kansas Speedway. The main reason for the tickets coming available was kind of a bummer but I still appreciated the gift all the while. Therefore, I didn’t wait too long before sharing the news with Ellie and Ethan to their upmost excitement.

Fast forward to Sunday morning after church and a quick early lunch, the kids and I were in the Traverse around 11:15 heading towards Kansas Speedway. Since I knew the race didn’t start until 2:00 pm, I knew that we’d have more than enough time to follow our traditional Sunday morning routine. However, I wanted to make certain that we left early enough to enjoy exploring the midway before the race began.

After parking our car and making the hike to the midway, Ellie and Ethan were immediately filled with the desire to check out the NASCAR Kids section at the track. Once we headed inside the area, the kids first took the opportunity to sign their names on an actual NASCAR stock car that is traveling from track to track this season. Ellie’s recently learned to write her name in cursive, so it was pretty fun to actually watch her do so. Next, we headed to a little photo area where each kid took a photo with a kid-sized version of the NASCAR Cup Championship trophy before participating in an RC car race on a replica of the Chicago Street Race course.

Once the kids got their fill of the NASCAR Kids area, we continued exploring the midway, ultimately finding our way to the Toyota exhibit where the kids were able to take a photo inside a replica of Christopher Bell’s #20 car. This was fun seeing as how the Oklahoma native is actually quite a favorite of our family. From there, we wandered to the NASCAR Stage where we watched a trivia contest take place between two individuals competing for a chance to take part in a NASCAR Driving Experience. I embraced chaos here by holding up fingers corresponding to the correct answer in the multiple-choice questions. For the record, I got every question right although one of the guys was a little too late in realizing that.

Finally, it was time to head into the actual racetrack where we took an elevator to the top of the grandstands. About this time, it began raining. If you’re a NASCAR fan, you probably shouldn’t be too surprised by that as negative weather seemingly follows the Series all around the country. While I was initially optimistic that the weather would pass, it eventually became clear that the weather was there to stay for a while. Therefore, we finally made the decision to head back to the car for a little break since I knew the track would take 60 to 90 minutes to dry once the rains stopped.

We waited in the car for about 30 minutes before I finally made the painstaking decision at 3:00 pm to head home and let the kids rest for a while. I knew that the race would either be run at night under the lights or if the rain was bad enough, it would be postponed until Monday. Either way though, it wasn’t going to be fair to the kids to wait at the track that whole time.

Once at home, we took the opportunity to rest and regroup while I continually updated NASCAR Twitter accounts (not so) patiently awaiting an update. Finally, at 4:30, my update arrived. The track was dry and the race would be held under the lights starting around 5:15 pm. So, at 4:45, with the kids awake, we loaded up and made our return to Kansas Speedway.

Once we got parked, we entered the track and headed straight to our seats to take in the race which was already in progress. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from the kids, Ellie especially, as we watched the race. However, they were absolutely engrossed. It helped that I had brought winter coats and a couple of blankets to keep them warm. My large assortment of snacks didn’t hurt either.

After Stage 1 of 3 came to a close, we made our way down to the concourse where I bought the kids a basket of chicken fingers and fries to share to make up for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I had forgotten at home. Once they finished their meal, we headed back up to our seats for the final half of Stage 2 and all of Stage 3.

It was actually really fun to see how well Ellie and Ethan were paying attention to the action on the track. Ellie especially loved pit stops and gazing through our binoculars as she watched the tire changers quickly go through their motions. In fact, she eventually began counting the number of seconds it took the crews to finish their stops. Ethan for his part was transfixed on the results of Ross Chastain and continually searched for “The Melon Man” as he made his way around the track.

As night fell upon the Speedway and the lights turned on, the kids’ fascination increased. Ellie continually looked at me and stated just how cool the night race was. True story, as their bedtimes are around 7:15 pm, neither kid had ever seen a night race before Sunday night. Honestly, they probably didn’t even realize they existed.

The thing about night races is that the track completely changes as the temperatures cool. Drivers went from being spread out around the track during the daytime to intensely racing side-by-side. As such, the number of cautions increased dramatically during Stage 3. They became so frequent that I fretted we wouldn’t actually get to say until the end of the race. That would have been a horrible mistake though.

With around seven laps to go in the race, the caution flag waved one final time. With so little time left to run, it was a guarantee that NASCAR would be calling for a two-lap “overtime” shootout to decide the race. I took the opportunity to pack up all of our stuff and encouraged Ellie and Ethan to stand up for the end of the race. Finally, the green flag waved, and the cars headed off into turn 1. Ellie took the opportunity to provide me with a running commentary on everything happening on the track.

The cars came around the track successfully and took the white flag meaning that no matter what, we were now watching the final lap. Over the course of that final lap, two drivers, Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson, frantically battled for the lead. Finally, coming off of turn 4 for the final time, the two found them side-by-side, crossing the line in a dead heat.

At this point, the entire grandstand (as well as myself) was screaming leaving both Ellie and Ethan more than a little confused at what was going on. Finally, a hushed silence fell over the seats as it became apparent no one knew who had won. Buescher was originally named the winner but a video replay about 30 seconds later confirmed Larson had passed him at the line. By a margin of 0.0000 seconds, Kyle Larson had won the race. Not only that, but we had just witnessed the closest race in NASCAR history.

Larson is in the #5, Buescher is in the #17. FYI, I did not take this photo.

Yes, I’m serious. At their first ever race in person, Ellie and Ethan were treated to the closest finish ever in the 75 years of NASCAR. As we left and headed to the car, I strove in vain to drive home the point of exactly how big of a deal this was. While I think Ellie understood a little, Ethan instead found himself crying over the loss of Chris Buescher. Not because he’s a Buescher fan but because he’s really tired of Kyle Larson winning so much.

We finally made it back to our car and both kids passed out in their car seats, tuckered out by a huge day at the Kansas Speedway. I had honestly never intended to take them to a race yet. That being said, I’m elated that the three of us received the special opportunity to share in this together.

Just in case I needed reminded how special of an opportunity it was, Ellie drove home that point on Monday morning by asking me to email her teacher pictures of our time at Kansas Speedway so she could share them during Circle Time. Pretty cool stuff, right?

#DaddyWrite