Father's Day

Slept til 6:45. That was sort of new.

Kids brought in cards. Jack had been talking up his cards all week. They were of course awesome. The best was one with a picture of the Earth, and a couple of dinosaurs on it, and a huge asteroid almost as big as the earth heading right toward it. The other had a funny rhyme: "Don't be sad. You're my Dad!" I think that was it.

Kate had made one at her preschool with a little poem between her handprints, reminding Dad not to get frustrated with her because she wouldn't always be this little. That one made me tear up a little.

Jack wished me Father's Day and hugged me. Then it was Kate's turn, but Kate often has a problem being told what to do. So she kind of hugged herself and looked down for a minute. I shrugged, wasn't going to fight it. Two minutes later, though, she looked up and said in a low voice, "Happy Father's Day..." and hugged me shyly. It was nice.

Jack wanted to have his breakfast in bed with me while I drank my coffee. We decided against it.

All day, Jack made it his business to defend me. "Mommy, you can't disagree with Daddy....It's Father's Day!" This occurred on a few occasions. Funny.

We went to the beach. I spent most of the time playing frisbee with Jack in the ocean. I was always pretty good at it and Jack has become pretty good at it too. We threw it back and forth in knee to waist-deep water for a while.

Made a sand castle with Kate. Found a cool shell that seemed to still have a creature in it and showed it to them. Put it back in the water where I'd found it.

Went to Ian's parents' house for dinner. Sat in their backyard to eat and drink. Kids played. They have a little waterfall and koi pond which used to fascinate Jack and now intrigues Kate. Toward the end of the evening we sat on the edge and looked at the stones in the water, some of which had writing on them. "Hope," "Change," etc. Kate couldn't read the words but could read all the letter. "H....O.....P....." she said slowly.

Everyone was pretty wiped out in the evening. A little too much sun and not enough water no doubt. Jack and I read his big Dinosaur book, a pretty cool recent one, where the T-Rex has a scary plume of feathers (seriously!) on his head and there are nice pages of Velociraptors (I had to explain to Jack was "cunning" means) and other fierce dinosaurs. And really, reading a dinosaur book with Jack, I can't think of many better ways to end a Father's Day.