A Perfect Weekend

April 04, 2011, By Craig J. Heimbuch 0 comments

I always forget this time of year. Warm weather, things starting, counting down the days of the school year. It's a bi-product of the life I live. I work at the same cubical every day, the only variation being the weather I experience during my commute. I miss out on most of the things that go on during the day. The kids are in school or at home. I'm at the office or away on business. The weekends are the only way to mark the passage of time.

Winter weekends always feel improvised. We try to figure out what we're going to do based upon what we can do. Either that or they are so task-oriented as to become extension of the work week. Paint a room. Go to Costco. Take the kids to the pool at the rec center, exchanging one climate controlled environment for another -temporarily at least.

But this past weekend - and every one just like it - is like possibility opening itself for bloom. The weather broke Saturday and, while the clouds lingered, it was nice enough. I took the boys to Home Depot for the first Saturday of the month Kids' Workshop. We built planters for my wife, little boxes nailed together by little hands for her to plant cilantro and, perhaps, tiny tomato plants in.

Then we were off to our younger son's first-ever t-ball practice. This was a moment he had been looking forward to for most of his three and a half years. I thought he was going to break his neck, craning in the back seat to see the field. He crashed hard, adrenaline drained, after practice, but woke up in time to join us for our first Major League game of the year.

Sunday, I woke up thinking life couldn't get any better. But, after a big breakfast and satisfying cleaning of my car, we decided to take in the perfect weather with a day at the zoo. I went to bed Sunday with a smile on my face.

Weekends like this one we had are the good parts of fatherhood. The pressure to provide, the expectation of involvement, the self-losing demands can make a man a little jaded. They can make it feel like the world is on top of you, hammering like a metronomic stone. You can lose perspective. But just when you can't sleep at night because bills and school choices and other pressures keep waking you up, you have a moment - a few seconds of your kids sleeping next to you on the sofa, a weekend where the world comes alive - and it all disappears. 

I some times forget about those moments, which seem to happen this time of year. But when they do happen, I drink them in.

Then I sleep great all night.