Dorky Dads

I was hanging out with Yogi a few weeks ago, playing with him and getting as excited and enthusiastic about something as he was (which is pretty darn excited and enthusiastic) when it hit me. I was acting like a dork.

Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the way I was acting (and continue to act). I believe that its appropriate to relate to children as they relate to you and one of the many gifts that children give is their wonder and enthusiasm. Cliched and mushy as that sounds it is true. The world is fresh and new in the eyes of a child and when you experience the world that way, or are reminded to at least try, the whole experience of living is transformed.

But then it backfires on you.

Usually.

What I realized was that my enthusiasm and excitement, traits that I (by all reports) had myself at the age of five, were re-developed for Yogi. Before he was born I was cool. Not nasty, pessimistic cool but pretty cool nonetheless. Now here I was acting like a big goofball.

The irony is that the person who will most likely be most embarrassed and distainful of my newly developed dorkiness is Yogi. In about 6 or 7 years, maybe sooner, he will wish that I was as cool as I used to be. By then I will be so used to being a dad that it won't be possible for me to reform and any attempts at reaquiring coolness will be seen as pathetic by my young tween.

Oh well.