What A Weekend

It was a busy weekend for the Papa Bear clan as we attended my brother’s engagement party on Saturday night at Gamma and Pop Church’s house in north Jersey and then had to travel back to suburban Philadelphia Sunday to get ready for the week.

Saturday night went really well with the kids. I was talking to Mama Bear on the drive home Sunday about how proud I was of them. See, in the past gatherings like this were very difficult for us. Junior Bear and Peanut Bear, who are twins, would usually be acting up and Cookie Bear would be very clingy.

However, on Saturday night the twins were very well behaved and Cookie Bear was excellent. As many of you parents may know, it can be extremely difficult to enjoy yourself and a gathering like this, because you are constantly chasing the kids around or they are literally hanging on you (I mean pulling on both my arms at the same time) the entire time.

But on this night there was a complete transformation by the kids. They were social with the other side of the family, they were able to entertain themselves and they were very well behaved. It's amazing to see when kids hit certain maturity levels. Obvioiusly, I know their not adults yet, but this was a breath of fresh air.

There was a brief moment when Junior Bear decided to become the focus of the party, as he started to tell his dirty diaper jokes and was forcing himself to burp, but it was short lived and honestly (for me) very entertaining.

Now let me explain to you that Junior Bear is in kindergarten and currently, for whatever reason, dirty diapers are very funny to him. In case you are wondering what his dirty diaper jokes are like, here’s an example:

Junior Bear: Knock-knock

Papa Bear: Who’s there?

Junior Bear: Diaper

Papa Bear: Diaper who?

Junior Bear: Diaper dirty diaper (followed by hysterical laughter)

Of course there was the moment Saturday night when gifts were being opened and for whatever reason there was a collective silence and he rips off the loudest burp he has ever released. I was actually surprised that his dinner didn’t follow it up.

Right now he is also his biggest fan. Every time he says something he thinks is funny, he follows it up with hysterical laughter. Honestly, though, I think he gets that from me.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Junior Bear cleaned up at Wii tennis Saturday night as well. He put the smack down on Mama Bear a number of times (Mama Bear is really bad) and also beat his cousin, uncle and Peanut Bear.

It really was Junior Bear’s weekend.

Papa Bear’s Tourney Pool…
As you know, I am addicted to everything sports, so it’s no surprise I’m in a few college basketball pools. I got off to a great start on Thursday, the first day of the tournament, going 15-of-16, but everything fell apart after that. I lost an Elite Eight team on Friday in West Virginia and once you lose an Elite Eight team in the first round you can basically mail it in.

The weekend didn’t get any better for me and I am now looking forward to my first fantasy baseball draft, which will be on Wednesday night.

Listen up…

I don’t want to share every moment of our lives, and I'll usually stick to the stories I’m directly associated with, but this story might give you a better idea of my situation.

I was talking to Mama Bear on Friday and she was relaying a funny conversation she had with a few colleagues at work earlier that day.

One of Mama Bear’s friends at work was saying that her younger child is pushing the limits. He or she (I don’t remember what sex the kid is) won’t listen the first few times she says something. Another one of her friends, someone who often comes over to our house and is a good friend of our family, says she has the same problems.

Mama Bear’s one friend then asked her if she had the same problems. Mama Bear said, “No. Our kids are really good. They listen to me every time I ask them something.”

Mama Bear’s close friend agreed, remembering a story of when she was over the last time. “They do listen to you,” she said. “Last time I was over, you only had to ask them once to put the coloring books away. But (Papa Bear) had asked them 10 times before that and they kept telling him to hold on.”

Why is it that I have such a problem getting them to listen to me the first time? That’s rhetorical.

Now I am exaggerating a little bit. The kids do listen to me (sometimes) and they are really good kids. I love them to death. They all know how to have fun and I love that. If I didn’t love them so much and love being a dad as much as I do, I wouldn’t be sharing these stories with you.

Mama Bear has an amazing way to get the kids to listen. She focuses on the positives and the kids really respond to that. She’s smart, fun and witty. I am a better parent because of her.

She does go to bed too early, but if she didn’t I wouldn’t have time to write these (so let’s thank her for that).

Now you’re catching me at a serious moment (listen carefully because these moments don’t and won’t happen too often). These stories are often just meant to be entertaining for you, focusing on my faults and making fun of that.

I only think it’s fair that I seriously tell you that I wouldn’t be able to laugh at myself so much if it wasn’t for Mama Bear. She is the rock and keeps the order and that if it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be crying more than laughing.

THE WEEKEND THAT WAS…
My father-in-law and I worked on the bathroom again on Saturday. This time we were filling in the holes we made with dirt and cement. If you forgot the problems I had a few weekends with the kids, laugh about it again here: http://papabearmemoirs.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-needs-ditch-diggers-too.html

For a brief recap on this weeked, exchange “please get out of the hole,” with “please get out of the cement,” and you get the idea. Actually, the kids were out most of the time with mom and nana. They came back with a Wii.

We hooked up the Wii on Sunday. I was initially concerned that I was going to have to put a time limit on them, which I’ll have to do anyway, but I think Mama Bear is going to also have to put a time limit on me.

We played baseball, bowling, golf and tennis. In baseball, I took Junior Bear deep, twice. Peanut Bear was talking mad smack during bowling and golf. Junior Bear was beating the competitive Peanut Bear with regularity in tennis and she was getting so mad that he started to let her win and was being so encouraging to her. At one point he was telling her, “That was a really good shot.” That would’ve been true if the ball wasn’t going into the stands. Cookie Bear, well, she was busy with her blocks and babies and wasn’t too interested. Good for her.