Melting chocolates, a pair of frames, prescription refills, vacuum the house, and a text that popped up a few seconds ago asking me to run sneakers over to the elementary school for a post-field day switch in case she gets wet.
Got it.
No, no I don’t.
I don’t ‘got it’.
Not even close.
For starters, I couldn’t find hide nor hair of the sneakers.
Kid sneakers can never be found, not quickly and not as a matching set any how. Then I just completely forgot about them. Poof! Gone. Other thoughts and responsibilities moved in and evicted the sneakers. And anyway, shouldn’t I not save the day for a 4th grader? Where do I find the balance between dry footed kindness and soggy toed lesson learning?
A short drive to the arts & crafts store was next, for the chocolates and two frames. One 18×24, one 8×10. Got it. Ten minutes later I walked out with nothing sweet at all. I did not, however, realize this until I got home, when I saw the chocolate fountain taunting me from the kitchen island.
And was that 18×24 or 16×20? Oh crud.
Three calls in to two doctors and I still wasn’t any closer to locking down the med refills needed to ease the nerve issue in my right leg. The kid’s sleepover birthday party, the outdoor movie screening sourie, and the clean-up from all of that was going to be extra painful.
I’m fairly certain my wife needed something done too, but man I don’t have any clue what that was.
Balancing Cheerios up on top of a spinning vinyl 45rpm record, a chubby orange tabby cat, and a spinning-even-faster fidget spinner seemed like a breeze compared to the balancing act of keeping it all together as a dad, husband, party planner, home decorator, and healthy human being.
Maybe it’s the zen-like qualities inherent to the Cheerios Challenge, but man, stacking those Cheerios throughout this past weekend provided me with some serious calm. It was that calm that I used to escape — if only for a series of brief moments — the errands, the pulsing pain, and the cacophony of elation coming from seven 10-year-old girls have a raging good Friday night.
To be clear, I’m positively rotten at the Cheerios Challenge, was last year and not much has changed, but it didn’t matter one bit that I could barely get 4 Cheerios high before my stubby, shaky hands failed me. For me, on this weekend, it was about the laser focus I employed that vanquished the outside world of forgotten chocolate melts and physician phone tag, and in turn brought about some peace in the eye of a fatherhood storm.
It’s funny to find relief in the form of something with its origins in the realm of the silly but then again, maybe the silly parts of being a dad are exactly what makes all the other stuff — the balance of teaching difficult lessons versus saving the day and finding the balance of what must be done versus what can wait until there is more space to breath — manageable day in and day out.
This is a sponsored post on behalf of Life of Dad and Cheerios. I received compensation for this post; however, all opinions stated are my own.
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