Dude Day : Vol. 3

I once read a quote that said ” Live a life you don’t need a vacation from”. In my younger years I would not have been able to even wrap my mind around this thought. I can now, every week when my son and I have what we refer to as Dude day, that’s exactly what it is a little mini vacation.  I can step back in time and just enjoy the moment for what it is. Everything is fun and to an extent everything is new again. As you’ll see in my retelling of this weeks exploits there is nothing exciting or adventurous just normal stuff, but having a four year old with you makes it fun. 

The Morning

Will woke up at normal time this morning but he was not in the mood to do anything except watch cartoons. A side note here is that I love cartoons as well I could watch them all. After last week he made me promise we would go back to wafflehouse I assured him we would. However, he decided he would just eat breakfast at the house. This was fine with me because he had asked to go fishing today and I had some preparing to do if that was going to happen. He ate and we got dressed and headed out. 

Wills first fishing trip

First of all, as a father and as a fisherman this is one of the biggest moments in my life. I never even mentioned fishing to him he just asked to go. I have not done any meaningful fishing since right before my son was born. I do not like to force anything on him and if he shows an interest we try it. Ok enough about all that. The first thing I needed to do was renew my Mo state fishing license so we went to the local Walmart got him a little Spider-Man tackle box some bobbers, weights, hooks, and worms. The worms fascinated him right off the bat. He thought I was tricking him that they kept the worms in cardboard in a refrigerator on a counter. I have to admit that after writing it this does sound ridiculous. I assured him that there was in fact worms in the container I did not want to show him for fear that they would soon be crawling all over the floor. We went to Bee Tree park in St. Louis county. They have a small lake.  I have known a lot of people that have fished here but I don’t think I ever heard one say they have ever caught one. When we arrived I told my son the rules. 

1. Be quiet or you will scare the fish. I am pretty sure this is a lie perpetuated by fathers and uncles. 
2. Do not touch the hook. I really never heard this before but I’m pretty sure it’s the safest thing to tell him. 
3. The most important rule- DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR POLE

I was surprised that for the first five minutes he followed everyone of these rules. He whispered, he watched with inquisitive eyes as I wormed the hook and paid close attention when I explained how to cast. We practiced casting a couple times then he said he ” I’ll watch you” I smiled and turned my attention to the lake. 2 minutes that’s precisely how long it took to dump all the worms on the dock and stomp on a poor few. He said they were trying to bite him. I told him they did not have mouths which made him pause and say” How come they poop then”. I decided to refer back to rule 3. I will have him cast and hold the pole this will give me time to clean everything up. I was wrong. As I was on my knees cleaning up worm casings,  he bolted off the dock and up the trail. I am happy to report that he never broke rule 3 as he was running his pole was still in his hand the problem was that the bobber,hook,and worm were still in the water and he was running with about 200 ft of fishing line blowing in the wind behind him. We were done fishing and I would not trade those 15 minutes for anything in the world. 

Wafflehouse

While driving home Will said to me “Thank you for letting me play with the worms”.  I love this kid. He asked if we could please go to Wafflehouse and by this time it was lunch time and I was fine with it. The people at WH were very happy to see us since we didn’t go last week. He ordered his usual and ate every bit of it. 1 waffle 2 pieces of bacon 4 pieces of cinnamon raisin toast and a bowl of pickles. Hey, don’t judge me it’s Dudes day for petes sake. Originally we were going to go to the store afterwards but he was getting tired and I thought now would be a good time for a nap. 

Post nap

The rest of the day we went to the hardware store, back to Walmart, got some dinner and went home and ate. I add these things because they were fun too. I absolutely love these days spent with my son. I know I say this every week but it is so important all we have to do as parents is be present not just physically but mentally as well.