Admirable Admiral

It's opening night for The Admiral in The Sound of Music, and the first night of the last run of his stage career!  The girls don't perform until tomorrow, but Scott is lucky enough to be in both casts.  I can't wait to see him onstage!  I'm sure he'll rock it!  I can't tell you what a good sport Scott is to do this.  It's about 300 times more work than he or I thought it would be.  He's at rehearsal every night until 11!

If not to see Marta and Louisa sing about their favorite things, PLEASE come to DHS for The Sound of Music Friday night or Saturday afternoon to see Scott as a Nazi officer.  Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime chance!  We are all proud of you, Scott! 

Fathers' Day

 With Fathers' Day coming up, I found my favorite "dad" sentiments from an article I have saved.  It inspires me to invest more as a parent on a daily basis.  It also makes me thankful to have such a great dad for my kids.  Everyone knows Scott is one of the best dads out there.  It might be the thing I am most grateful for:  that my kids have a dad like Scott.  Here's my favorite magazine article...

A Story By Hugh O’Neill

Earlier today, we dropped our daughter off at college. Like her brother before her, she went and grew up on us. And as I write, I’m feeling downright valedictory, even rueful, about the passing of the Dad years. Sure, I’ve still got a role as their father. But it’s just a bit part now and, worse, doesn’t include all the best stewardship stuff — making sandwiches, buying cleats, locking the door behind them each night when they come home. Clearly, an era has ended.


And as usual, whenever a buzzer sounds, the competitor within wants a score. “How’d I do?” whispers the bottom-line lobe of my brain.
Normally, I’m not much for self-criticism. I’m from the school of Reggie Jackson, who when asked to describe his shortcomings once confessed that yeah, okay, he probably did care too much. But somehow, my kids’ leave-taking has cracked open my shell.  Suddenly, I can see some areas of Daddy weakness.
Now, don’t mistake me. My kids are darn lucky to have me. After all, there were no sirens or flashing lights in their childhood. Nor am I enjoined from crossing state lines. I hereby restate my official position: They could have done worse in the father sweepstakes. Still, looking back, it’s clear that they might have done better, too. If I could turn back time, here are some things I would have done differently, more or less.
1. I Would Have Packed the Car More Often 
Some of my most vivid family memories are from on the road: midnight swimming at Disney World, hiking above the tree line as night swallowed Colorado. Sure, in part they stand out just because they were exceptions to the dailiness of our three-bedroom Cape in New Jersey, and we saw new places. But for me, the appeal of traveling as a team isn’t that it’s broadening. It’s the opposite – sweetly narrowing.  Somehow, when you’re lifted out of your normal habitat, dropped into an unfamiliar place where nobody knows who the four of you are, you see your team with fresh eyes.


Somehow, after a day at Colonel Wilson’s Reptile Village, with all of you cuddled in two beds in the $39.95-a-night anonymity of motel America, watching some corny movie and eating pizza, you feel bound, not merely by DNA or circumstance but also by the memories you’ve made together. No passports or planning or piles of money required. Just go. Three days hiking in the nearest national park. A weekend trip to watch the Yanks play the Orioles at Camden Yards. Just go.


2. I Would Have Tried to Spin Things Less 
I’m a sunny guy, and so spent a lot of time reassuring my kids. They’d come home from fourth grade with a problem, and I’d explain it away rather than really hearing it and understanding their anxiety. Bad plan. I’d sympathize more, manage reality less. That way they might confide in me more now without fear of being talked out of their feelings.
3. I Would Have Raised My Voice Less 
If you ask me, most fathers of my generation don’t shout enough. We try to reason with kids who have no concept of what’s reasonable. I once heard a guy coaxing his son off the roof of a minivan, explaining why it wasn’t safe to ride up there. “If Daddy had to stop short, you could fall off and get hurt, and that would make me sad.” Yikes! Sometimes, yelling is better than building self-esteem. Consider this from child psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim: “We become most upset with our children when we see in them aspects of our own personalities of which we disapprove.” Bull’s-eye! I support Dad anger when kids have earned the wrath of a right-thinking man. But my wrath wasn’t always the honest and true and helpful kind. Sometimes it was the whirlwind of my self-loathing. That wasn’t fair, and I’d take that back if I could. My hunch is that free-floating anger makes kids more timid than they otherwise might be.
4. I Would Have Put Up the Hoop Sooner 
It’s no snap to find common ground with kids. After all, a man’s mind is filled with adult concerns, and a kid is fretting about being sucked down the bathtub drain. A basketball hoop in the driveway is a bridge across the gulf. It’s hospitable to games of H-O-R-S-E with your 52-pound third-grader and to real contests with your teenage power forward. The beauty is that the court requires no conversation – which both fathers and kids hate. The sounds and shuffles of driveway basketball – the bonk of the rock on blacktop, the lope and ease of shoot and retrieve – are WD-40, loosening up everything and quieting the minds of both big boys and their kids.
5. I Would Have Hung Around More at Bedtime 
The 10 minutes right before the kids go to sleep are often gold. In a way, they’ve surrendered, and sometimes, as they put on their pajamas and brush their teeth, the anxieties of the day fall away and they’ll start to talk in a wandering, undefended way. Often, revelations float to the surface, and you’ll get glimpses of dreads or enthusiasms or curiosities that the momentum of the day might have obscured. Don’t get caught downstairs watching the second quarter of Pistons – Bulls just when the kids are about to blossom. Hang around their bedroom for 10 minutes or so, and see if you can’t catch a flash of something, of little people reaching out to the big ones who they suspect care greatly about them.


6. I Would Have Bought More Hamsters 
My hunch is that years hence, long after I’m gone, whenever my daughter thinks of me, the first word that flashes across her mind will be “Peaches.” Not the fruit, but the loyal brindle-and-white hamster who was the founding mother of our rodent dynasty. For a period of 4 years, when my daughter was in fifth grade through eighth, she and I conspired to raise countless generations of hamsters good and true. And the sensory memories of the equipment required to tend said pets – the squeak of a hamster wheel, the piney smell of wood chips – will always summon Dad for Daughter, Daughter for Dad. Fishing has the click of reels, the texture of a basket creel. Car care brings wrenches and fumes and hand soaps around which pearls of recollection grow. I’d have shared more stuff with my kids – golf, hunting, baseball, coin collecting, camping, whatever, doesn’t matter – anything that has the gear to shape remembrance.
7. I Would Have Invested the First 5 Minutes More Often 
Often, at the end of the day, I was tired. Frazzled by obligations and addled by a too-short attention span, I didn’t always engage with my kids in whatever – reading to them, helping with homework, listening to their tales of trauma or triumph. But almost every time I got past the initial inertia – driven by guilt or goading from Mom – there were moments of invigoration just around the bend. We stumbled upon silly games and jokes that have evolved into the stalwarts of our family culture. Thoreau celebrated what he dubbed “the gospel according to this moment.” If I could turn back time, I’d try to think about the past and the future a little less.
8. I Would Have Been More Patient With Fantasy 
Let’s say a man had a son who was less interested in sports than he was in elves and wizards and comic books. And let’s say that this son who was in every way bright and good and loving just didn’t fit his father’s preconceived idea of what his son would be like. He was expecting a hardy Huck Finn – an outgoing, athletic boy – and he got a somber, shy, sweet one. A fully grown man ought to have known that there are a million paths to manhood; he should have cherished somber and shy and sweet more. His failure to embrace those elves must have seemed like a reproach.
9. I Would Have Touched Them More 
I touched my kids a lot when they were little. We wrestled and cuddled, and slept together whenever anybody got scared. But as they got older, I got less touchy. Sure, it made some sense. Fourteen-year-olds rarely enjoy the same monster games they did a few years ago. But in part I fear I touched them less because I felt marginalized by their teenage disinterest in me. Yes, I was giving them their space, but I was also withholding the endorsement of a tap on the shoulder while passing in the kitchen, a kiss on the top of the head while swooping out the door to work. Shame on this grown man for holding out on the kids he loved. Human touch trumps the language of esteem building. A righteous dad should keep using his hands.
10. I Would Have Spent More Time Alone With Each Kid 
I spent a fair amount of time with my children. But the lion’s share of it was with both of them together. I wonder if that didn’t keep me from hearing the unique sound of my boy and my girl. Heaven knows we had lots of laughs as a group, but in my next life, I might institutionalize some just-the-two-of-us traditions with each of them. Something tells me that if I’d had a never-fail Saturday-morning diner breakfast with my daughter – my son was asleep anyway – I might have heard her solo voice a touch more clearly, and she might have understood the particularity of my love for her.
Bonus Wish: I Would Have Had More Kids 
Sure, that’s easy for me to say, since childbirth is not overly taxing on Dad. And I suppose stopping at replacements for Mom and me made some ecological sense. It’s not that I feel I’ve been cheated – Josh and Rebecca have filled my cup – but I fear I may have shorted my kids on the greatest asset there is: brothers and sisters. I’ve got an embarrassment of riches – two brothers, four sisters – who every day
make me feel at home in this world. I have a hunch more is better. The love of your siblings might just make your parents the smaller figures they ought to be.
If you judge a father by his results, then I’m as good at it gets. My son and daughter have made my mistakes moot. We’ll just leave it at that, lest my editor have to cut out encomiums to my kids. Here’s what I think I’ve learned about fatherhood: All the assertive, egocentric skills that make us successful as young men, as athletes, as wooers of women, as commodities in the marketplace of the world, actually hobble us in the sweet sessions between father and child. If I could do this again, I’d just work harder to be quiet, open to songs in all the keys of life. My kids didn’t have a perfect father. My bet is yours won’t either. But they won’t need one – not as long as they’ve got you.

Pants on the Ground, Pants on the Ground...

Pants on the ground!

Pants on the ground!

Lookin' like a fool

With your pants on the ground!

The kid repels pants.  What can I do?

Real Men

The men in the family (the weaned ones, that is) took a trip to Park City, and BOY!  Did they party!  With Scott's restaurants.com gift certificate, the boys ate like kings at Spin Cafe in Heber.  While they were living high on the hog, the girls were at a neighborhood carnival.  Ruby was going to use her tickets to get Freestone a treat, since he was missing the carnival.  She asked me what he would like.  I said, "Ruby, I hate to ruin your night, but Freestone is drinking root beer out of a cowboy-boot-shaped glass and eating a giant bowl of three different flavors of gelato right now.  So maybe get something for you instead!"  It was true.  Scott knows how to dine!

The Dopp men also did some shopping (bought some linen shirts!) swam, relaxed in the hot tub and stayed up late.  At the pool, Scott told Freestone that they couldn't leave until Scott made a long shot in the pool hoop.  After several attempts, Scott said, "This is getting ridiculous!"  Freestone kindly replied, "Dad, you're not ridiculous.  You just can't shoot."

Even if Scott couldn't shoot, he'd still be a pretty great dad.

Ari and Company

And while Golda and her friends were trolling the streets, THIS was happening at our house.  Ari's friends came bearing snacks and carrying towels.  I turned on the hose, grabbed a bag of cheese puffs and laid on the couch.  It was the perfect start to a summer that is going to be all about nothing!  Heavenly!

No Longer a Sevvie

Golda had a great experience in seventh grade.  We got to see her grow right before our eyes, learning the ropes of a new social and academic environment.  It is crazy watching from the sidelines as your offspring transform into real people.  I thought that I'd hate to see her grow older, but it's really exciting and fun.  She is setting the bar high for her younger siblings to follow in her footsteps, academically and spiritually, and Scott and I are proud of her for her drive and spirit and all her accomplishments.  I hate to brag about her, but as Mohammad Ali famously said, "If you do what you say, it ain't bragging."   Golda did a great job of burning the candle at both ends and running with it this school year.  She ended up with a 3.9, which I think is amazing and Golda thinks is slightly disappointing.  I am just really proud of her, and impressed and thankful.

For the end of seventh grade, Golda decided to invite a bunch of friends to walk with her from school to Scott's office, where there's a little hidden garden area.  All the junior high and high school kids roam around town on the last day of school, so the girls wanted to be right where the action was.  A couple of weeks ago, we scoped out the empty, neglected garden area and envisioned it with big pillows, cushions, balloons, paper lanterns, twinkle lights, tables laden with food, fresh flowers everywhere, etc, etc.  For about a thousand dollars, we could have done that.  What we ended up with looked like somebody's mom had bought balloons and made cupcakes.  I wanted it to be more, but the thousand dollar option probably would have come off a bit desperate.  :)  Nevertheless, Scott and I enjoyed setting the stage for the party.  Coco was thoughtful enough to take Little Miss Me-Me-Me (aka Xanthe) for the day so it could be all about Golda.  Once the girls showed up with their yearbooks, Scott and I threw cash at them for ice cream cones and disappeared.  One of the many things I love about living in this town is that you can so easily find a dozen 7th graders who are completely trustworthy.  Then you can feel safe letting them wander around comparing yearbooks with all the other kids.  It was a glorious ending to a great school year!

The Fifth

Ruby is ready to finish up fifth grade and take her place as the Queen of the School as a 6th grader next year.  Actually, she's ready to ditch this cow town and start studying guitar at UCLA immediately.  I have no doubt that she could live on her own in L.A. and do just fine in college, since she's essentially been an adult since birth.  But first, she has to finish a book report.  And elementary school.

Ruby's 4th term reading goal has taken a back seat to everything else lately.  She was blogging one night and Uncle Traj asked her which was more important, homework or blogging.  She said, "I don't have any 'followers' of my homework."   (Yes, she used air quotes.) So suddenly it's the end of the school year and two more books have to be finished up, now!  I was following her around this morning, reading out of The Family Under the Bridge while Ruby got ready.  She dashed off to school as I shouted the last page up the street.  I checked Ruby out at lunchtime to write her last book report.  With hours to go in the school year, Ruby finally has her 800 pages.  Can you say helicopter parent?  I don't care.  She'll thank me for teaching her to follow through when she's singing and playing guitar on the Santa Monica Pier to pay her rent in L.A.  It might come to that.  Music gigs are hard to get when you're eleven.

Play Ball!

 Freestone's picture of him playing catch with his dad.

Apparently, my mission in life is to make other parents feel good about their parenting skills, and I'm doing a great job.  Here, I'll show you:  Have you and your spouse ever watched a good twenty minutes of your son's baseball game before realizing that your son is not among the boys on the field or in the dugout?  Never done that?  We have.  See, don't you feel like a better parent already?

Freestone had team pictures before his game last night.  After pictures, he followed the coach to walk to the playing field, while Scott and I went to other direction to bring our cars to the field.  We were having a great time on the sidelines talking to Ryan and Jennie and all the other parents about why Ptolemy didn't have pants on (long story) and how the husbands would do things if they were in charge.  Suddenly, Henry was up to bat again, and I hadn't seen Freestone bat yet.  Scott and I looked in the dugout.  No Freestone.  We scanned the field.  I was squinting, saying, "Well, what about that boy?  Is that one Freestone, the one on third base?"  It's hard to tell with those giant baseball caps on, but none of them was ours.

I ran back across the busy road to the far field where we had parted ways with Free.  Searching for a Rangers cap with a sobbing six-year-old under it, I finally found him.  A dad in a suit with a Blackberry was crouched down with him, dialing my phone number as Free stifled heaving sobs.  I guess his coach had left him behind at the drinking fountain, thinking his parents were there.  What he didn't know was that Freestone's parents are incompetent.  (To tell you the truth, I was more focused on how I was going to sneak away from the game and smuggle Ruby out of play practice to go to Jazz, then back into practice an hour later without anyone noticing.  As if she were crossing the border out of the former Soviet Union, I had instructed her to quietly walk out of play practice at 7:28, NOT looking back, and there would be a car waiting for her.)  So I was distracted, and those baseball boys are all wearing the same outfit, for heaven's sake!  After all the excitement had died down, I listened to my phone messages.  One was from Ari saying, "Hi mom.  Play practice ended (different play practice than Ruby's) and I've been waiting a really long time.  Bye!"  Clearly, I am in over my head.  But in my defense, who lets 3rd graders out of rehearsal 45 minutes early to roam around outside?  When I picked her up, I was pleased to see that the other kids who hadn't been picked up were walking around on the roof of the park bowery.  I felt better.  At least I got there before Ari cracked her head open.

Freestone caught on quickly to the benefits of being abandoned.  Last night and again this morning, he walked up to me and said, "YOU LOST ME.  Can I play Wii?"

My answer:  "Yes, of course you can, but let me give you one more hug first."

Good Friend in a Small Package

Araceli decided that she and I should go to the "Ranch" in Park City to celebrate the end of second grade.  When Ari decides something is going to happen, it usually does.  Especially when it's a fabulous idea like a mini trip!  Ari and I and our little sidekick, Ptolemy, drove up Saturday afternoon and hit some major deals at the outlets before dining and snuggling up at the condo.  On the way up the canyon, we talked about school, recess, and 8-year-old stuff.  I heard lots of stories that started with, "There's this kid in my class who..."  (The kid version of Once Upon a Time.)  Then it was quiet.  I was thinking maybe we should have brought Freestone when Ari said, "Mom?  I'm a little lonely."   Later she said, "Mom, for some reason I feel like crying.  Can I call Freestone?"  I thought her acute case of loneliness was sweet.  She felt better after checking in with Freestone.

 Araceli is such a fun little girl.  She has grown a lot this school year, physically, mentally and emotionally.  The emotional part has been a fair amount of work.  The intense metamorphosis from child to adolescent is hard.  Butterflies have to fight their way out of the cocoon to build strength, and that is akin to what Araceli has been doing this year.  During our trip, I told Ari all my second grade stories.  I had a horrible teacher and a terrifying year that year.  As I told her about it, I realized second grade is a hard, transitional age.  When I was in second grade, we had to earn coins each week.  If we had enough by Friday, we could buy our way into a popcorn party.  I was very shy and I must have been a lazy student, because I never earned enough coins to attend the party.  Those of us who didn't qualify had to sit in our desks doing work during the popcorn party, which took place at the back of the classroom.  We weren't allowed to turn around in our desks to see the kids at the party.  We had to sit there working, smelling the buttery smell and listening to the popcorn jumping up out of the air popper.  I can relate to feeling lonely.  One of the loneliest and most humiliating experiences of second grade was when I had to sit under a 4-foot-high dunce cap in front of the whole class for fifteen minutes.  It was made of green butcher paper and was so big, it came down to my chin.  I remember the tears splashing our from under the dunce cap onto my pants as the class laughed at me.  The big, green, cone-shaped hat actually said "DUNCE."  That is a true story.  And don't even get me started on the sadistic game "Red Rover," which our teacher loved to make us play.  I was always chosen first to try to break through, because I never could, and kids always targeted me to run at, because I could never hang on and stop them.  My arms were always bruised and aching.

Thankfully, Araceli's second grade year was nothing like mine.  Her teacher is a wonderful, kind and compassionate woman and Araceli excelled in her class.  I am glad I had a miserable second grade year because I know what kids feel like when they are bullied by peers and teachers.  I can help my kids be on the lookout for children around them who are hurting.  In Park City, Ari and I saw a bunch of youngish teenage girls eating at Panda.  One of them, a cute girl, went into the bathroom.  Her friends, laughing, jumped up and ditched her, saying, "Hurry!  Let's leave her!"  When the girl came out of the bathroom and her table was empty, she was so sad and embarrassed.  Ari witnessed the whole thing and was upset and concerned.    We had a chance to talk about being a good friend and including everybody.  Ari has a loving nature, and I hope she grows into the kind of person who is a good friend to everyone.  She was a good friend to me this weekend, instigating a fun little getaway and being a nice little companion.  Thanks, Ari!

Cemetery Pictures