If we met yesterday, today would be our first tomorrow

Mason’s birthday was this last Wednesday, I took the day off of work so he and I could spend the day together. Our day was crazy busy but so much fun, here is a list of the big activities.

Shopping at Toys ‘s’ us: Mason got to pick out his own present. He got a remote control car.

Went to the park: We wanted to run the new remote control car but it takes an hour to charge so we played at the play ground for a while. Mason made a single serving friend and they played tag.

Played with Remote Controlled Car: After playing at the play ground we played with the remote controlled car. It was a lot of fun, so very fast.

Red Robin: We headed to Red Robin to get some lunch, Mason told pretty much everyone we came across that today was his birthday and he would like it if they sang to him. It was quite adorable and made me proud to see him display social skills to get something he found valuable.

Remote control car fail: We went back to the park to do some more remote control car playing but it only worked for a couple of moments. Checked directions to make sure we did everything right and set it to charge again.

Mini Golf: We went back to the miniature golf course and finished the last course we had not tried yet. Great fun. I think when I pick him up this weekend we might go back, it is not far from his mom’s house.

Remote control car fail: Still not working we returned to Toys ‘r’ us where they were kind enough to replace the busted car. We then went to Mason’s house and played Super Mario Brothers while we waited for the car to charge, which it did and it was good.

Baseball Banquet: Gathering Mason’s mom and her man we went to Mason’s baseball banquet. Everyone got a trophy and they sang happy birthday to Mason. During the banquet I noted that several of the kids came to Mason and asked if he wanted to hang out with them, he declined several before he decided something he wanted to do and they all followed.

Messy Games: After the baseball banquet we headed to the park again for messy games, a cub scouts event. The kids got to dip pudding on each other, have a marshmallow fight with syrup on the marshmallows and other such crazyness. Afterwards again they are sang happy birthday to Mason. After seeing Mason being “popular” at the banquet I was watching for it at cub scouts, he was not as popular, mostly because of the larger age difference I think, he can’t compete with the early teens but he was well behaved and helpful to the den leaders. I recognize one of the benefits of being a child with divorced parents, he is learning to adapt his behavior to the circumstances to find social engagement.

After all of that I took them all home, gave Mason a hug good bye and wished him a happy birthday one more time. I will get to see him again this weekend, I am quite excited.

It has been several years now that Mason and I have been spending a week together in the summer and this has been the most successful trip so far. In the past Mason and I have both been ready for him to go home several days before the end of the vacation. Setting up activities in a such a way that we got time away from each other and that we had things to do the entire vacation instead of all at the beginning I did a better job of managing our time and energy. I hope that next year I will do an even better job.

This last week I realized that being a good part-time parent is not being a full-time parent only some of the time. There are different challenges in being a part-time parent that can’t be solved in a full-time parent style. The first and most on my mind is that Mason will never have good friends at my house, he is not there often enough to build those relationships. This means that I will always have to be his friend when he comes to visit. So I will have to do the things that a 7 year old will enjoy doing, but I need understand my attention and energy levels and have him take part in the things that I would enjoy as well and above both of those is find activities that will suit both of us.

This journal has been really helpful in growing and understanding a few things about myself. I hope some of you have enjoyed reading it as well, if you have please tell me something you have enjoyed doing with your father or as a father in the comments.

7/31/2011 (Sunday)

Today is the last day of our vacation together, so when I got up in the morning I asked Mason what he would like to do, he answered “I would like to do something with you…. Can we play a co-op video game?” We played video games and pet kittens for a couple of hours and then I took him home. It was a short day, only saw each other for a few hours but they had a good quality to them.

7/30/2011 (Saturday)

My knee is still hurting today so not much in the arena of physical activity for me. We took the kittens to the vet for their first check up. After the Vet Amber took Mason for a walk so he could have some physical activity. My leg hurting, the high temperatures and a long week have worn me out, I can tell that my energy is slipping. I will miss Mason but I am also looking forward to taking him home tomorrow, a hard set of feelings to feel at the same time.

7/29/2011 (Friday)

With Mason staying at my mom’s house we had little time yesterday or today for doing much beside transportation and hanging out but showing that hanging out and building relationships comes before almost everything else seems good.

While running around the block I wore out and twisted my knee a bit, hopefully that will feel better soon.

7/25/2011 (Thursday)

Today Mason and I played around the house this morning and then went off to my mom’s house for another visit. Mason stayed there for the night while I had a Shadow Accord meeting at my apartment.

Nothing special to report for today, which is its own kind of special.

7/27/2011 (Wednesday)

Today Mason did some work for me. He wanted to buy a game from the Xbox arcade so I paid him a dollar to move boxes from the closet out to our new shelves and unpack them. He earned enough money to pay for half the game and I am paying for the other half (it is a two player game so splitting it seemed fair).

Parkland Putters: http://www.yelp.com/biz/parkland-putters-tacoma

Mason’s cubscout group had their meeting at Parkland Putters today. Mason and I played 3 sets of 18 holes and enjoyed ever last hole, Mason got 3 hole in ones on the last course and I was proud, more of his ability to enjoy the game and puzzle solving in each hole.

When I was a kid my father took me to Parkland Putters a few times, we always had a good time there, he was often proud of how well I would do.

My father set quite a few bad examples on how to live life and because of them I have been avoiding doing the things that he did. But that means I have been ignoring his good examples on how to enjoy life. After golfing on the ride home Mason slept and I thought about all of the fun things I used to do with my dad and what made them good.

Here are the top three:

Parkland Putters: Time outside, working together, solving puzzles and encouraging each other.

I don’t have anything like this, I need to find a few ways for us to think together that are not two player video games. We need to get outside and build something… maybe some boffers or something.

Sandwiches and Discovery Channel: We used to go to the grocery store and buy all kinds of sandwich fixing and then sit in front of the discovery channel making sandwiches and watch all manner of animals do whatever.

Mason and I excel at this, we spend afternoons hanging out watching tv, playing video games, wrestling and generally hanging out.

Spanaway Speed Way: Heading out the races, which I found completely dull… except the figure eight race. So dull that I spent most of the time at the kinds park. The kids park was the important part, when you are with your secondary parent you don’t usually have friends around, going to a park where most of the kids don’t know each other puts you on equal footing with the rest of the kids. Find a few single serving friends and enjoy the night.

I take Mason to the park lots, one of the things he does is make these single serving friends. This is something I will do more of with him.

I have been holding onto a trophy I won at Parkland Putters for more than 20 years and today I finally figured out why. I am about to dig it out of my closet and share it with Mason so we have something to mark that really good day and a recognition of the cycle of fathers and sons.