What Was I Thinking

You remember last week I talked about my trip to the Jersey Shore in the summer of 2008 with the three kids and no Mama Bear. Remember, the non-stop chatter about superheroes? Well, here’s the rest of that story.

It was Day 2 of our trip. Mama Bear wasn’t expected to join us for another day and Gamma and Pop Church had house cleaning to do. I just came off what felt like 24 hours of answering the same question over and over, but the weather was nice and it felt like a new day.

See, I’ve learned as a parent of three younglings you have to have some sort of short term memory loss to get by each day sane. If I let what drove me completely nuts the day before to continue to bother me the next day, you quickly lose your senses. I associate this to a closer in baseball; he can’t loom on what went wrong the day before when he blew the save. He needs to concentrate on the task at hand to try and succeed. The key is to learn from what went wrong and improve.

It’s that last part I’m not good at. I’m a little slow at learning.

Like a glutton for punishment, I took all three kids to the beach on my own. No parents, no friends – nobody. Just me, two 5-year-olds and a 3-year-old on an endless beach. A beach with lots of water. Lots of water and sand. Lots and lots of sand.

As soon as we got there, Peanut Bear wanted to run in the water, Junior Bear wanted to stay at the shoreline and play, and Cookie Bear…well she didn’t want to do anything but stay at the towels.

So here’s the scene: A beautiful late summer morning, Papa Bear who burns a shade of red never seen before even by a lobster and sweats like there’s no tomorrow, a girl (Peanut Bear) pulling on his left arm towards the shoreline, a boy (Junior Bear) with a hand full of sand that he’s trying to put down the back of Papa Bear’s swimsuit and a third child (Cookie Bear) 20 yards away at the towels screaming that she doesn’t want to go towards the water.

What was I thinking!?

I had to quickly turn the tables.

But how?

I had a flashback of an event that happened earlier in the summer with the twins and Pop Church (my dad), who I think intentionally sent me to the beach by myself as payback.

See, earlier that summer Mama Bear, he and my mom (Gamma) took the kids to an event at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. I was working the event, so couldn’t be there to help. At one point, Junior Bear and Peanut Bear got hungry and he agreed to take them to the concession stand.

Well, no sooner did he agree, Peanut Bear bolted out of the chair and ran up to the concourse. Junior Bear was close behind, and my dad was sweating to keep up. Needless to say the twins beat him to the top. Peanut Bear didn’t hesitate and made a left hand turn, disappearing out of sight. Junior Bear had a moment of hesitation and paused at the top. He looked left, then looked down at his Pop, probably thinking “I shouldn’t do what I’m about to do,” and then made a sprint to the right.

Flustered, my father threw it into a gear he hadn’t seen in decades. He ran after Junior Bear first since he was closer and then tracked down Peanut Bear. When he got them together he yelled like he hadn’t in years.

Pop Church: “That was bad! You never run away from me!”

I’m sure he added some other choice words to get the point across. He had every right too. That’s a scary thing. And only because everyone turned out okay, I can laugh at the next thing that happened.
Junior Bear, not happy he was being yelled at, immediately got mad at his Pop and said, “You’re not very nice.”

Well that sent my dad at a whole new level, a level that was later explained to me by Mama Bear as Phase Purple, because my dad turned purple yelling.

Anyway, back to the story (focus Papa Bear, focus).

I couldn’t go in the water. That was the absolute wrong answer -- that much I knew. So I let Junior Bear get me with the sand. He wasn’t going to stop until he got me. I then chased the twins up to Cookie Bear and buried them. I buried them all up to their heads and that’s how they all stayed until Gamma and Pop got there a few hours later. If they can’t move, they can’t cause problems, right?
No. I’m joking. I didn’t bury them up to their neck -- just to their waste. They got out and we had fun.
I am quickly learning that vacations aren’t relaxing anymore and I need a vacation from vacation.

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If you liked this story, try the archives (located along the right-hand column) and find some other stories of a grown-up child trying to navigate through fatherhood.

Baseball’s Back; PBM Making a Donation

It’s Sunday night and I’m excited that the baseball season has finally started again. I absolutely love watching baseball. I know I’m probably in the minority here, as many don’t like the slow pace of the game, but I really enjoy the sport.

There are a number of reasons why I like watching baseball, but it wasn’t until last year that I came to find the biggest reason why – Junior Bear likes watching games with me.

He sneaks out of bed, comes down and watches a few innings with me. It is fun for me because he asks me a ton of questions (mostly baseball, but some other questions as well) and it turns into a real bonding experience for us. I’m not kidding myself here, I understand why he comes down – he’s not ready to go to bed and knows that if he acts interested I’ll let him stay up longer. But that’s okay with me.

This also means the start of fantasy baseball season as well. I had my draft last Sunday and think I came out with an average team. But here are some of the players I’ll be pulling for (or cursing out) for at least the start of the season. Chase Utley, Mark Teixeira, Dan Haren, Carlos Lee, Mike Pelfrey, Lastings Milledge, Denard Span, Stephen Drew, Chone Figgins and a bunch of others.

I have two other teams, but won’t bore you with all 50-plus players I will be rooting for as the season begins.

I think it will only be a matter of time before I have Junior Bear making roster moves for me. He actually asked if he could have his own team after seeing the Alyssa Milano fantasy baseball commercial on ESPN.

Finally, Titi Bear (my sister) is taking part in Revlon Run/Walk for Women, a charity event to raise money and awareness for women’s cancer. If you are so inclined, you can make a donation to her personal page by clicking here.

The Papa Bear Memoirs will also be donating any and all money raised through the site’s advertising from March and through April to her for the event. Since I’m just learning all this blog advertising, I’m not really sure how much money will be raised this way, but every little bit helps.

So, if you’re on the site right now, make sure you click on the Google Adsense ads that are at the bottom of each of the first three entries to see if you’re interested in purchasing something. I do think that the site makes money for just clicking on the ad as well. Also, if you’re planning a vacation, need life insurance, have been procrastinating on your taxes or need an auto part, please check out the other ads on this page.

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.