In Honor of Father's Day.....

I love the dynamics children have with their parents. Sometimes you see some pretty awesome stuff. I think for me, I'm constantly watching and wanting to learn new things. I want to be the perfect parent, and I feel the failure on a daily basis. It's hard being a parent and a role model. Any parent is a role model in their child's eyes (at least at one point or another). Sure, I realize that my 16 year old daughter has more resentment than love towards me at this point in her life. Does that make me sad? Of course it does. I sure didn't think when I gave birth to that beautiful redheaded wonder that she would one day think I'm the meanest person on the planet.

There are so many different stages a parent/child relationship goes through. For me, it's difficult, because I don't have the best feelings towards my mother at this point in my life. I DO resent alot of things she did. It doesn't mean that I don't have great memories as a child growing up with my mom. It just means that now I realize where the problems came from. And I have been trying so hard not to be like that with my own children. And in doing that, I've created more problems than I know what to do with.

My point in saying this (and forgive me for getting long winded and off course a bit) is that I really hope that my children will remember the great times they had growing up and that the moments of resentfulness don't make the most or longest lasting memories. That they remember more of the fun things and less of the rockier times we've gone through. I love this new song (Watching You), the first time I heard it was when Rich and I had gone somewhere with Nathan. And when the song came on I turned around to see Nathan wearing Rich's baseball cap and it made me smile that Nathan wanted to wear his daddy's sweaty hat.

When Anthony was about 2 years old, he followed Rich everywhere and wanted to do all the things his daddy did. Once when Rich was fixing the roof on our house, Anthony followed Rich up the ladder. Rich heard Anthony say "Hey Dad you need some help" and turned around to see Anthony standing right there on the roof!! One other time, when Rich was babysitting he heard some pounding coming from the room he was remodeling. He went to investigate and found Anthony pounding nails into the floor. Anthony was so proud that he was "helping" his Dad.

Zachary went about another form of imitation. While Rich was working at the jail, he had to wear a tie to work (during the winter months). For months on end, Zachary wanted to wear ties everywhere he went. It didn't matter if he was wearing a nice button up shirt or a tee shirt, he had to wear a tie just like his Dad.

Nicholas also followed suit with clothing. During winter months, Rich will often wear two shirts (a Henley shirt with a long sleeve button up shirt over it), he gets cold easily since he has all that metal in his back. Nicholas went through a stage a year or two ago where all he wanted to do was wear two shirts as well.

Now it's interesting to see Nathan watching Rich. He likes to do all the things Rich does. He likes to drink soda, and eat pudding with "cream" (cool whip) on top. He likes to "steal" Rich's hats and wear them around the house. He doesn't like wearing his own cap or his brother's - he wants to wear his dad's. He likes to sing along to the music in the car.

It's fun to watch these things. Kids idolize their parents in one way or another, at some point in their lives. It's usually when they are little and before the parents turn into meanies. But, I guess the lesson is that you should never let your guard down, because you never know who is watching or listening to you....they see and hear it all - the bad stuff and the good.