Saturday (afternoon) is Alright for Fighting

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and as sure as rain is wet, I was waiting for Jess to ask the inevitable..."can we go to Funtime Junction?" With no other plans, the girls and I headed out for the aptly named indoor oasis.

At this point, the girls are old enough to run around Funtime Junction by themselves, so I sit in a chair and either do work or listen to my iPod (or both), glancing up to make sure they are alright. After an hour or so, the girls ran over to me to complain about a boy pushing them. They quickly went back to playing, but after another 15 minutes or so, they came racing back complaining about the boy again. I asked Stef "how old is this kid?" She laughed and said "like seven, he's about half my size." At that point I knew this wasn't as serious as both of them had made it seem. About a half hour later as we were leaving, I asked Stef if the boy had still bothered them. "No," she said. "I told him I was twelve and Jess told him I knew Karate."

Saturday

This morning the whole family went to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey to volunteer for a few hours. We sorted cans, bottles and boxes of individual food items into different categories like canned goods and protein, put them in boxes, then loaded them on pallets for food pantries to pick up during the week. The girls had fun, and learned a little about people who are a lot less fortunate than we are.

A few hours ago, Jess and I played a round of miniature golf to make up for the miniature golf birthday party she missed a couple weeks ago because she was sick. Not surprisingly, Jess got 2 hole in ones, one on the particularly long 16th hole. She and I followed the great round with a dinner at Fridays, where we ran into one of her friends. Right after I finish typing this, Jess will be finished with Webkinz, we'll play a few games and call it a night. Not bad for a rainy Saturday.

The Bike Ride

Stef and I have a lot of fun riding bikes together. It gives me a chance to talk to her about her day and find out what's on her mind. So I was happy when Jessica recently got over what I like to call "The Great Training Wheel Incident of '07" (GTWI for short) and learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. For the record, GTWI was a non-injurious yet indelible incident when one of Jessica's training wheels flew off her bike just as she began descending down the hill at the top of our street. It's the first time the phrase "the wheels are flying off" could be applied literally to a situation I was involved in.

Anyway, we've gotten past GTWI, and I was looking forward to the leisurely "Daddy, there's this boy in class that I kind of like..." phase of daddy-daughter bike riding. But so far, Jessica's idea of bike riding consists of jumping out ahead of Stef and I by a hundred feet like a Tour de Family Bike Ride. I then pedal furiously to catch up to Jess to remind her to stop at the street corner, help her cross the street, then circle back to get Stef, feeling less like a dad and more like a cow herder.

I'm hoping Jess will one day slow down so we can enjoy some memorable bike rides like I have had with Stef. Unless of course, these are the memorable bike rides and we'll just be doing more of the same from here on out.