Fatherhood Friday
Did you ever have one of those days where a number of small good things added up to one set of great lasting memories? Last weekend the family and I went to Chicago for the day and while nothing extraordinarily memorable happened I kind of feel like its one of those days that will make an imprint.
The impetus for the visit was a Cubs game. Last year around this time I wrote about a friend who honors the memory of his father (who was a diehard Cubs fan) by watching the Cubs play on his father's birthday. I was fortunate enough to join him for the first time last year in Milwaukee and was glad to make it two in a row.
Two factors made it more special. First, I'm a lifelong baseball fan but had never been to Wrigley Field before. Second, my seven year old son has been getting into baseball lately so I was able to take him with me. The weather was great, the baseball atmosphere was great, seeing my old friend was great and even though I've taken my son to games before it kind of felt like the first time.
After the game we caught up with my wife's college roommate, who I'm also very close with and who I think my seven year old might have a crush on. We were excited to celebrate her engagement! One more bit of good news that made for a great day.
Afterwards we met my wife's cousin and wife and their newborn for dinner. We're really close with them yet we realized it was the first time we had gone out with just them i.e. no extended family. Again, nothing extraordinary - just a really nice time on top of a really nice time.
We skipped out on dessert since it was already close to bedtime for our two year old and we had a 90 minute drive in front of us. We figured he'd be asleep before we left the parking lot. Boy, were we wrong.
There must have been some caffeine in his beverage, because he was wired like he's never been before. For 90 minutes straight he kept singing any song he could think of, only stopping to point out trucks. Which, on the interstate, was every 12 seconds or so. At one point Frank Sinatra's "Chicago" came on the radio. No joke. The two year old thought this was the greatest thing ever and for two days that was all he sang, even though the only words he knew were "Chicago, Chicago."
I imagine that anyone reading this besides my wife (and maybe my mother-in-law) would likely find this to be a pretty mundane story. And that's okay. The point is that I bet we all have days every once in a while that maybe don't have a lot of extraordinary pieces but become "instant classics." Its even better when you recognize it right away.
(Photo credit: http://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2009/06/baseball.jpg)
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