23 Jun 05 Good Intentions

My intention was to have a nice family dinner at the Cheesecake Factory last night in celebration of Madison’s graduation. You know what they say . . . the road to Long Beach is paved with good intentions.

The ceremony was fine. We wondered, for many valid reasons, if this might be one of the few graduation ceremonies for some of those kids. If you hadn’t guessed we are very proud of Madison. She earned a Presidential Academic Achievement Award. She has a nice certificate signed by President Bush.

Being a bi-lingual school they observe some interesting traditions. We had heard about some mysterious event in which immediately following the ceremony the kids [alone] would be in the gym and no parents would be allowed. Turns out it was a dance - which explained the outfits some of the graduates were wearing.

I was having a hard enough time with being told by the school that my child would be participating in some event that I as a parent was neither informed of or allowed to chaperone. Even greater difficulties when it was discovered to be a dance. I don’t have the typical “church” opposition views about dancing (yes one of the dreaded “d” words). To “force” a dance environment upon my recently graduated child as some sort of rite of passage was (in my opinion) quite inappropriate. As parents we needed more than thirty seconds to have a legitimate conversation with our daughter about these kind of things.

That being said, I didn’t handle it as well as I would have liked. I didn’t behave like an idiot (though I often probably do) I just asked Madison to stay for about five minutes and come out so we could all go have our family dinner in celebration. I just rushed us out of there to go spend time with the family.

Probably the biggest mistake I made was suggesting the idea of a family dinner without talking with the rest of the family about a family dinner. The icing on the cheesecake was an expensive dinner of which I didn’t actually get to eat at the restaurant. They gave me the wrong item. The waiter argued with me about how I was mistaken and the plate I had been given was what I had ordered. I politely said he was mistaken but would eat the meal anyway. He left I took a bite - he came back and said, “oh I’m sorry we made mistake and you were right, we are fixing you a new plate.” By this time it was almost 10PM so I asked for the meal to go. Talk about good intentions.

I continue to learn things last about myself and my sweet wife. She’s trusting, I’m suspicious. I let my protective side prevail far too much over my fun side. He has a fun side? Sometimes it seems to be such a struggle trying to be the dad my kids need and the husband she needs. I’m just so thankful that I get another chance.