A kid and a dad

(Greg playing chess with Dane.)

These are some things Greg did with the kids this weekend.

He played "Snake" with them. This is a bit like Calvinball, if you are familiar with that. The rules always change. However, the general idea is that these large play tubes we have are snakes. They eat the children despite their desperate attempts with Greg to shoot them with the Nerf dart gun. Once the kids are eaten they are regurgited, lifeless, onto the floor. They are only revived by "Snake Oil Potion" which is a drink including, but not limited to, milk, Hershey's syrup, caramel syrup, and even marachino cherry juice. The child returns to life and you play again.

He read an entire Ironman comic book out loud. Frankly, that tops my list of awful things to do, followed closely by cleaning up cat puke. I mean, I have no idea how to narrate "KAPOW" and "Oh, Ironman, save me!" effectively. A feather in the daddy hat for sure.

He sang them to sleep every night with a 20 minute guitar concert. Favorites are "You Are My Sunshine", "Swing Low", "People Get Ready", and a general blues riff. I have heard Nathan say more than once, "MORE BLUES DADDY!"

We (I do show up every now and then) spelled a bunch of words for Aubrey to sound out. She likes us to spell simple words out loud, she writes them down, and then sounds them out. After many serious words Greg threatened to give her the letters s-e-x. He taunted me by giving her the "s" and "e" but ended with "t". Wouldn't that have been a fun word to show off at preschool.

He allowed Dane to poke him over and over again in the eye region at lunch while Dane squealed with delight and said, "EYE! MORE! EYE! MORE!!!" He did it just because Dane has a great laugh.

He drove Nathan around like a crazy person in the kids' car cart at Home Depot, even running them into a display when "Nathan" drove the car too close. He smiled sheepishly to the sales person in the aisle and then too right back off, swerving madly to the sound of Nathan's howling laughter.

Kids need a great dad, there is no doubt about that.