I'm a very lucky man. I have two amazing children. I'm not particularly good at being a grown up myself but through the grace of fates, I've somehow been part of raising two of the best people I've ever met. And I was reminded of it tonight.
My two children have been gone for the past 13 days on a trip with their grandparents. Covered over 3000 miles in a Pontiac. Which speaks both to my parents' good natures and the family devotion to General Motors. Today was the day they returned. I had begged my folks to make sure that they were back for today. Because today is one of my favorite days as a Dad.
It was Kids vs. Parents at Tee ball and Soccer. All summer long I watch them grow as individuals, play with others, succeed, fail, get back up and try again. And then I finally get to play too.
It took me a while to realize the one of the gifts of being a parent. The excuse to play. Board games, water fights, dart tag, build legos and even compete in seemingly mismatched adults vs. children game of sport.
Ironically. This is a day I was dreading not even one year ago. I know the expectation. I know that the adults are supposed to make the kids feel good and the kids will win. So we miss an easy grounder or pass it right to the goalie to make the kid feel better. So I was prepared for that. Last summer, I was ready to play my part and placate and make it seem like I was trying even when I wasn't. I was prepared for all of that and the fake grins and ah shucks that come with it.
What I wasn't prepared for, and it's something that I should have come to realize I'm never prepared for and probably won't totally ever truly be..was my daughter.
Last summer at soccer. The parents were doing their parent thing, halfass'ing it and trying to make the kids look good. What none of us expected was that despite our good intentions and desire to build the egos of the kids, they caught on to the B.S. My daughter regularly reminds me of how much she knows, sees, perceives that I don't give her immediate credit for. But I didn't see it coming at all that day on the pitch.
In the middle of the parent v kid pagent of almost trying. My daughter stopped. Turned to me. Gave me a scathing look her mother couldn't have mustered and said at the top of her 7 year old voice with pure righteousness and incredulity...."You're not trying".
She was right. I wasn't. I just had never expected her to know. She followed up by somehow channeling an actor I'm sure she's never seen, Al Pacino. She said...and I quote. "I'm giving my best and I deserve your best."
Yeah. Not expected. The beauty was what happened next. Every kid on her team did the same, looking at their parents and not accepting the half assed kicks or the oops it went through my legs crap. They wanted to beat us fair and square. No gimmicks. No layups.
The entire game changed. It was amazing. These same kids I had watched for two months muck about on the field played with barbarian like intensity. This was their moment, they weren't going to let up because we, as adults, thought we should placate them. And the adults changed too. No. We suddenly weren't all gifted with exquisite skill but all of a sudden we gave a damn and actually started to try. No we didn't start throwing elbows or slide tackling the kid who can't dribble but we didn't just let the ball go through our legs anymore either. We tried. And damn it, our kids deserved that we didn't just roll over.
I feared that maybe that was a one time thing. That my daughter wouldn't challenge me again. That she'd want to win easy, to not worry if I was actually giving it my all. But tonight, though she didn't tell me I wasn't trying or that she deserved my best, she competed. Though not allowed by the coaches, we kept score both personally and as teams, she reveled in both the goal she scored by accident, by having a shot re-directed by her knee from the kid who probably has better facial hair than me (at 8...) and the one that she simply gentled rolled into the opposite corner.
I scored two as well. Still careful not to be that guy who's knocking over kids but also actually giving the goalie shots he has to work to stop. And I showed off a bit. I used ball control to fake one kid on his butt and sent several balls across the middle that could have easily been slotted away by any middle school striker. And the best part is that I found that even when I tried and these 8 and 9 year old kids ran their best at me, they often still won, the ball went out of bounds or was cleared. I swear the look that they had on their faces after I actually ran with them into a corner on a 50/50 ball was worth the fact I was gasping for air.
Not all the parents got into it. There was the Dad in the Barca track jacket who seemed entirely too cool for school. There was a dad who insisted he'd never played before but was excellent in sending decent through balls down the line so I could race a kid who probably was baselining kool aid or something before the game. And yes, I'd been waiting 5 weeks to score a goal against the loud mouth kid who is a horrible goalie and made a snide comment about a scoring chance my daughter had weeks ago. It wasn't perfect. But it was worth every time I gasped for breath or considered telling my 6 yr old to call 911.
I tried to save a ball from going out over the end line and resulting in a goal kick by a over zealous hook slide approach and reroute it for a throw in instead. I missed and I got a nice raspberry on my leg as a reward. But as I poured the peroxide over my wound, as I had dozens of times in high school, I knew it was worth it. And the only thought that was in my mind was the hug that my daughter gave me in the middle of the game and she said, "I'm so glad we made it back for this."
She might channel Pacino at times. But that girl will always make me an offer I can't refuse. Try.
She deserves it.
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