“Four-Year-Old Wiffleball Sign-Ups”

There’s a league for 4-year-olds that starts in April and runs to the end of May. Every Saturday Will is going to play Wiffleball with a bunch of other kids and learn the fundamentals of the game. Well, technically he’ll be perfecting the fundamentals since I’ve been teaching him to swing a bat and throw a baseball since he was about a week old. But I digress.

On the surface this seems totally innocuous and very much a win-win. Will gets to be active, play with other kids and learn about a sport all at the same time. And it’ll be valuable bonding time with him as we practice and get to be together doing something we both love. All of that is true. On paper this should be a very fun, laid back time during which I can take pictures and talk with other parents and delight in watching my son scamper playfully around the baseball diamond.

But I don’t think that’s how it’s going down.

To understand what I’m talking about, you need to know a few things about me. First of all, I’m a perfectionist. Not regarding everything in my life, but certainly regarding sports. And second, I’m a huge crybaby when things don’t go perfectly. Which is often.

When I started playing baseball at the age of 5 I showed promise very early. I had a great arm and I could hit. My first coach was a friend of my dad’s, a born and bred New Jersey guy named Bill. He was a really good guy underneath his gruff exterior, but he was also a miserable prick. He knew I was good so he held me to a higher standard. While other kids were being praised for their attempts to catch the ball, I was criticized even when I did catch it for not using the right fundamentals. Or if I didn’t hit the cutoff man fast enough. Or if I legged out an infield single he’d poke fun at me for not hitting it in the outfield.

Ultimately he made me better, but I carried lofty expectations with me when I advanced to the next leagues for older kids. And that’s when it got really bad.

I made the all-star team when I was 9 years old. We had a really great team and a lot of awesome players in our age group, and we’d play together every summer for the next four years. Our coaches really knew what they were talking about and I learned more than I ever imagined about baseball in that time. But they expected a lot. I mean it. A lot. For instance, when we were 10, I remember we lost a game to our rival, Franklin. And after the game they told us we let ourselves down, our parents down and disappointed the entire town. I was crushed and in tears. And I vowed to never let anyone down again.

As you already know, that’s impossible. But combine that need to please with a perfectionist’s attitude and you got me as a kid. The kid who cried when he struck out. The kid who cried and threw a temper-tantrum when he didn’t make a play in the field. The kid who—and I’m not making this up—cried after hitting a double off the fence because it wasn’t a homerun. And of course, the kid who nearly had a mental breakdown if we lost the game. Let’s just say there are plenty of pictures of me with my team holding second place trophies and crying hysterically.

A neurotic, hyper-competitive, perfectionist crybaby. Those were some good times.

But for better or worse, I’ve carried that with me even to now. While my athletic days have long since passed me by, that attitude resurfaces in even the most mundane of endeavors. For example, MJ will no longer go bowling with me. When we were dating, she was beating me in the 8th frame and I was so pissed off I started kicking the ball return. And those of you who have watched Patriots and Red Sox games with me can probably attest to the fact that I am, well…not exactly a sane person when things start to go south.

Even with Will I’ve seen the competitiveness flare up. I eagle-eye his milestones and make sure he’s ahead of the curve. I compare him relentlessly to other kids his age and older, and get legitimately upset if they can do things he can’t. Hell, his recent progress report from preschool showed him to be advanced in every category except letters. He’s average in letters. This struck such fear into me that I’m now going to work more on letters with him every single night until he’s reading Stephen King books.

Which brings us to wiffleball.

When I found out I had a son my first thoughts were of teaching him sports. Unfortunately, I fear I will be “that sports parent.” The one everyone hates. The one who takes a kids’ game way too seriously. The one whose son goes 3 for 5 and then criticizes him for striking out in the third inning. And God forbid Will is average or even below average at sports. I’m not sure I can handle that.

I was raised with high standards, with sports and even grades. While everyone else had the traditional grading system, mine was different. An A was good, a B was a C and a C was failing. I still remember my dad asking me why my A- couldn’t have been an A. And I don’t fault him for that, it kept me on my toes and made me work hard. But I also remember it feeling like an intense amount of pressure.

I don’t want to be That Sports Parent. I really don’t. But I think it might be inevitable. Thankfully MJ will disembowel me if I get too out of hand, so it’s nice that I have her to correct me. Yet even if I’m not expressing it, I’ll be thinking it. I already have visions of Will as the star catcher hitting the game-winning homer to take the state title. Yes, I absolutely intend to live out my dreams of unfulfilled athletic glory through my son. And yes, I’m also aware of how pathetic and unfair that is.

But I think Will is going to ultimately thank me during his Cooperstown acceptance speech. The road to the Hall of Fame starts with Wiffleball!

But kids also wreck some shit you used to really like.

MJ and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary on Friday night. My parents volunteered to watch Will which meant we had a night all to ourselves. And we planned to spend it doing the things we loved to do before kids—the old dinner & a movie.

Our dinner reservations were at a very upscale restaurant for 7:30 p.m., followed by a 9:40 p.m. showing of Sherlock Holmes 2. For people who are usually in bed by 9:30, it was a pretty aggressive itinerary. The restaurant was very nice. It was at a quaint, historic inn with an extensive menu and a very—let’s call it “foo-foo” atmosphere. Honestly I always feel more than a little out of place at places like that, but I wanted to give MJ something nice.

As all parents know, going out to eat isn’t nearly as enjoyable with kids. First of all you have to make sure you go to a “kid place.” And that means nothing fancy. When you get there you launch into this routine that puts you on edge until you leave again. You have to get your kid past the front entrance where all the arcade games are. God help you if you forget quarters. Then the coat needs to come off and you need to sit the kids on the inside so you can cordon them off from the general public.

Suddenly timing becomes unbelievably essential. You have to place your kid’s order first, but not too soon. You want your kids to get their food about 10 minutes before yours comes. Any later and your kid will be done eating when your food arrives, meaning you won’t get to eat at all. Or if you do, it’ll be at the expense of your spouse as you tag-team caretaking duties between bites.

All in all if you get in and out as quickly as possible without a major incident, it’s been a good night.

Fast forward to Friday night. MJ is dressed to the max looking like a model and I’m in a jacket, dress shirt and slacks. We sit down, order drinks and bask in the glow of the candlelight and romantic ambiance. A few minutes go by. Then five. Then 10 minutes pass. Suddenly the internal parent alarm inside my head started flashing red.

“Where the hell is the waitress? We have to order,” I said in a huff.

MJ told me to relax. That dinner at fine dining places like this one are more like events that last for hours. She told me we should take the time to unwind and enjoy each other’s company. And she was right. Absolutely, positively right.

But it didn’t matter.

The longer it took to order, get our appetizers and get our food, the more irate and annoyed I became. I couldn’t relax or take it easy. I just had the unyielding need to hurry things up and get going. It’s been pounded into me as a parent for almost four years, and I don’t think I can escape it anymore.

We ended up missing the movie because dinner took so long. As it turns out, that was a blessing in disguise. We drove home, flirted a little, got to bed and—well, I think you know what happened next. Yup, I came back from the bathroom to find my wife snoring and sound asleep. Which makes sense. After all, it was almost 10:30 p.m.

Oh well. That’s part of the territory when you become a parent.

In closing, I want to tell my beautiful wife that just because I now feel the need to rush through meals, doesn’t mean I love her any less. In fact, I love her more now than ever. But I have to admit, our wedding day was one of the best of my life. Have a look.

“Dada, I don’t want you to go back to work. I want you to be here with me.”

That’s what Will said to me last week in the middle of a rare 11-day vacation during which I got to spend a bunch of time with him. It was really fun being there when he wakes up in the morning, cuddling with him, sleeping in and then watching movies and playing games all day. For more than a week we didn’t have a care in the world as we went out to breakfast, took the train into Boston and had ourselves a great time.

But justifiably, a 3.5-year-old’s mind wants to know why it can’t be like that all the time.

“I miss you Dada, you never take me anywhere.”

Nothing pulls at a working parent’s heartstrings like the feeling you’re not spending enough time with your kids. And with my extended commute and long hours of late, I certainly fall into that camp. So while I was on vacation I tried to make up for lost time. We visited relatives, saw Disney on Ice and took far too many trips to Friendly’s for ice cream sundaes.

But he continued to basically tell me he felt neglected and that we don’t do enough.

I was really stressing about it and feeling like a dick. Meanwhile MJ just stood there with a smirk on her face, wearing the all-too-familiar look that tells me she knows something I don’t. As you can imagine, it’s a look I’m well accustomed to at this point. When I asked her what her deal was, she hit me with something completely unexpected.

“He’s playing you,” she said.

What? My sweet boy? My angelic little man?? No way. No friggin way. The kid missed me. He missed his dad and he’s craving some father/son time. I promptly told my wife she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, because I know my son and I’d be able to tell if he’s screwing with me.

Then I marched into Will’s room with my chest puffed out and decided I was going to make a late bid for Best Father Ever. I asked him if he wanted to go to the library, one of his favorite places. He said no. I offered to take him to the playground. He declined. I told him we could go for a walk. No dice. Disappointed but undaunted, I asked him what I could do for him to make him happy and feel loved.

“Can you take me to the toy store and buy me a toy?”

Honestly, I would’ve. But I couldn’t because I was financially tapped from buying Christmas presents and paying bills, and I wasn’t getting paid til the next week. So I told Will I couldn’t take him right now because I didn’t have the money.

“Oh,” he said with a look of contempt. “Then you should go back to work so they can pay you and you can buy me a toy.”

Dammit.

It’s a simple book that names a bunch of animals & what they’re doing. Will can’t read yet, but it doesn’t matter because he knows it by heart. He reads it to me, word for word, every night before bed. “I see a red fox slipping by me” and “I see a prairie dog digging by me.” One by one he ticks them off with precision and accuracy as he rubs his eyes and tries to fight off the sleep quickly coming for him.

“I see a blue heron flying by me” and “I see a mule deer kicking by me.”

He doesn’t like some of the real text though, so he substitutes his own words. The rattlesnake doesn’t slither, it rattles. And the mountain doesn’t climb, he goes up the mountain. Apparently creative license and editorial ambiguity is genetic.

As we get towards the end I smile. My favorite part is coming up soon.

Will gets to the page with a picture of the mama bear. The line is supposed to read “Mama Bear, Mama Bear, what do you see? I see a—” and then you’re supposed to turn the page. But Will like to ad-lib. He says “I see a Mama Bear looking for her baby because she loves and misses him.” Then he curls into me and smiles. Our favorite part is next.

The next page consists of small pictures of every animal featured in the book. I point to each of them and Will rattles them off like clockwork. Red fox, blue heron, mountain goat, prairie dog, mule deer, flying squirrel, screech owls and—of course—the baby bear. After naming them all, Will pauses and smirks at me. The last line is supposed to read “That’s what I see.” But Will, in the cutest voice imaginable, ad-libs the final line.

“All wild animals are free.”

I don’t know why I get such a kick out of that, but it makes my day. And it’s proof that the best and most memorable part of having kids is the stuff that’s woven into the mundane fabric of our daily lives. While a part of me can’t wait to read the Hardy Boys & eventually the Harry Potter series with Will, I’m going to miss Baby Bear when he finally gets sick of it.

“Thanks for reading to me Dad,” he says. Can you believe that? He’s thanking me!

Even before Will was born I wondered what he’d look like, how he’d act as a toddler, taking him to Fenway & Gillette for the first time and how he’d act as a precocious teenager. But then I stopped because I remembered my own teen years and the mere thought of being on the other end of that hot mess scared the holy hell out of me.

So I decided in that moment to write a letter to future Will, eight years from now on his 12th birthday, which I’ll keep and hopefully read in the future when I’m ready to tear my hair out. Here goes:
To my oldest son William on his 12th birthday.

Dear Will,
It seems impossible to me that in one more year you’ll be a teenager.
You are so big now, and every year I get more and more proud of you.

I wanted to write you this letter because maybe I can explain
what I want to say in writing better than I can in person.
As you get older, the pressures on you will get tougher and tougher.
You will have to make important decisions almost everyday,
decisions which will affect your life forever. Decisions like
“Should I try smoking cigarettes?” “Should I try any drugs?”
“Should I drink beer or alcohol?” and “Should I have sex with anyone?”|

You are also going to have feelings or desires to do things, or ideas
that you’ll think about that you think makes you weird. What you won’t realize
is that everyone is weird—just being you is what’s important.

Growing up is hard on a kid—I know. And it helps a lot to have parents
you can talk to, who will listen and not make fun of what you think.
Your mother has always been a great parent. She listens and understands.
I’ve always been too busy or impatient to really listen to you, and I know
you think I’m an old fart who doesn’t understand.

But the truth is, as you grow up Will, I’m growing up as a father.
Now I know it’s more important to listen than to yell.
I can remember how hard it was being 12 and I want to be there to help you.
It’s important to have a father at home to talk to about stupid things like girls,
or being embarrassed about something, or to ask if this ever happened to him.

As great as your mom is, some things you want to discuss with your dad.
I want you to know that I will try to be a listener, not a lecturer.
I will try and help you help yourself, not tell you what to do.

I know I haven’t done a great job so far, but I hope
you’ll give me a chance and trust me. I won’t let you down.
I love you,
Dad

Cool letter huh? Wanna know something even cooler? This is the exact letter my own father wrote to me 20 years ago when I turned 12.

Call this one of the perks of moving back home at 32—you find funny stuff from decades ago. But the silver lining is I’m once again reminded I never had to look beyond my own two parents to learn how to be a good one myself.