Dude Day Vol. 1

2/19/17

A couple of months ago I watched a Billy Crystal movie called “700 Sundays” The movie was good but what peaked my interest was the title. It is called 700 Sundays because that is the amount of Sundays Billy spent with his father over the course of his life. As a father myself this scared me and I immediately started doing the math. I want way more than that. I not only want more than that ,but I want to remember every bit of it. I want my son to look back and remember times we spent together. When my wife got the opportunity to switch her work schedule to have a day off during the week and to work on Sunday I took this as an omen to rename Sundays DUDE DAY. I have had several of these now, but I will start telling you all about them now. VOL 1.

Waffle house

My son and I woke up early today, he wanted to watch Bugs Bunny , I did not. So, while we were watching Bugs Bunny I looked at him and started smiling. I don’t really know what I was smiling about exactly. I just was having one of those moments where I was fully grasping just how lucky I really was. I got him up after 2 episodes and we got dressed and brushed our teeth. We have been going to Waffle house on Sunday mornings for the last four weeks or so. I love it, he likes it, and when he walks into the place everyone smiles it really is an awesome feeling and something he and I talk about quite regularly. This morning he says “I want to go to a different Waffle house” I say that’s fine, Which one would you like to go to? He tells me, so we go. When we pulled up he got kind of a worried look on his face. I noticed it but didn’t say anything. As we walked in everyone turned and looked, he panicked  and wanted to leave immediately. We went outside and I asked what was up. He Said “The people make me nervous” I asked him if he would like to just go back to our normal one and he nodded yes So we did. On the way we talked about how we don’t really need to be nervous when we walk in a room, its ok that we do but it doesn’t have to be that way. Well, after breakfast we went to the toy store. We have a 4 year old Birthday party to go to today at  the local Bowling alley. The party is for one of his school mates and this will be his first friends birthday party we are both really excited.

Toy Store

When I take my son to the toy store I have absolutely no expectations to how the experience will go, I suggest that anyone with a child takes this attitude. We also have a thing that we started this past Christmas where We take pictures of all the things he wants so we can get them later. This is another little piece of advice you should try. I do get some pretty weird looks from the other parents, but it definitely cuts down on the tantrums. I have started to judge my toy store visits by the bathroom breaks, and Today was  a 3 break day. While searching for the appropriate TMNT toy to get his classmate we found a foam THORS hammer. He swung one at me I parried and counter struck this caused my 3 yr old to die evidently right there in the middle of the floor. I could not resuscitate. The rest of the visit I had to carry him around like a sack of potatoes. We found the toy and continued on our day.

The Bowling Birthday Party 

We got to the party on time, and were immediately greeted by the birthday boy himself who was very excited that my son was there. He really didn’t care about me. There was 3 other kids from his class that attended. They were accompanied by there Moms as usual no other Dads. I do not understand this. Is it the Dads saying they don’t want to go or is it the Moms who would rather go? Either way I am glad that I did not miss it. My son was the life of the party high fiving everyone whether they did a bad or good job. All in all it was a great party. My son had a great time and I enjoyed watching him interact. The rest of the day was filled with a long nap , laundry and Play dough. I really love Dudes day and I hope my son does too.