I am not normally comfortable with shining a light on myself, but this weekend – I nailed it.

Before we get to my antics as Super Dad, however, I’d like to begin by setting the scene, which began Friday as Alison set out for a weekend retreat to focus on goals, mindfulness, peace and planning.  I want to start here because I find my wife inspiring most days, but what she has created for herself this weekend took it to a whole new level.  For the past several years I have seen her and her business partner grow what was once only an idea into something to truly behold; a community of therapists helping each other help families.  To say that I am proud of her would underserve the feelings I have and the accolades she deserves.   I am in awe of her commitment, her abilities, and her constant push to grow and develop herself.  The environment she is creating in our home for our girls as a result, is one that deserves attention, and her taking this weekend as a solo retreat for furthering her goals and setting her path for the next year is something beyond inspiring.  It’s motivating, it’s refreshing, and it’s emboldening something within me that I just know our girls are absorbing too.  She makes me want to push myself in ways I don’t even understand yet.

So, with the scene now set, and Alison away for the weekend, I will commence the journey of Dad’s weekend win.

I suppose the best way to start is by sharing with you that, whenever Alison leaves the girls and I home for an extended period of time – being two nights or more – a tradition must be followed. It begins in the weeks leading up to her known departure, when the kids and I will start to scheme our grand plan (it should be noted that I would sooner use the term ‘carefully organize our thoughts and project map’ but I feel strongly she would correct me if I did that…).  However you want to phrase it – the girls and I discuss and share our ideas for what fun we will have while she’s gone.  In the past we have done such classic antics as put googley eyes on everything, or hide 200 miniature ducks in every nook and cranny we could find, or replace all of the pictures, photos and artwork with images of corgi dogs; you know, the usual  stuff.  Now, I’m not ultimately sure how Alison feels about all of this at the end of the day;, yes, she laughs and we have fun, so I do know she appreciates the humour, but the thing I am starting worry about is just how much long term psychological damage we may be doing…especially if she were to come home one day to find that we’d done absolutely nothing.  I think that would make her more nervous and on edge than anything we could possibly hide around the home.   Of course, I can’t share with you what (if anything) we happened to do this weekend, because she may read this before she’s home, but I will definitely say that Friday night when I got home from work, the girls and I had fun.

With our weekend off to a solid start, the plans for Saturday were actually pretty chill and uneventful, with a play date potentially taking shape and the hopes that we would get to ice the sugar cookies, but other than that, it was going to be a nice, quiet day.  That was, until, the text chains started dinging and binging and pinging and buzzing as though Taylor just announced a new tour date.  Before I knew it, I was coordinating the crap out of a fun-filled day across three cities, four venues and seven variations of friend groups.  My logistics mind kicked in and I put on a clinic of play date orchestration that could potentially redefine my very being. I had the day ironed out with pickups, drop-offs, ticket purchases, carpool switcheroos and contingencies at every corner.  Move over, Mindy Weiss*, there’s a new game in town.

So with plans in place, the only thing left was the execution, and that honestly could have gone either way and I needed to lay the ground work properly with the girls – setting expectations is key, and as I’ve learned from the wise ways of my incredible wife; as much as I love surprises, they aren’t always the best approach.  Friday night I let the kids know the plan(s), and so when Saturday morning came, they got themselves up early, ate breakfast, cleaned their rooms, put away their games, had a bath, brushed their own hair and we even had time to do their nails.  Now, that may not sound like an achievement, but for them to all of these of their own free will in a single day is a feat on its own; the fact that they did all of this before 10:00 is otherworldly.  With the right motivators, however, we managed to get out the door on time, switch cars with Alison at her location because I now need the van, pick up two friends, and hit up our first stop for a Christmas concert featuring Nora’s teacher and a surprise run-in with another friend. The adventure was under way!

After the concert and some last minute decisions to get faces painted (kids throwing me a curveball on this one, but that’s what contingency is for!), it was off to Moana 2 to meet another of Audrey’s friends and split up groups for the movie – oh, we don’t have time for lunch before the show because there’s only 15-minutes between events?  No worries, I packed bento boxes for everyone to eat between venues.  After the movie we pick up another friend at the theatre and max out the seating in my van, then head to drop off Nora and two friends to another house for cookie making and dinner.  Audrey and her friend come home with me, but wait, there’s a text coming through…Audrey’s friend from BC is in town and wants to visit.  No problem, we can be flexible!  Another kiddo joins the party and surprises the heck out of my daughter, delighting her to no end.  Things just keep clicking.

They play, I make dinner, friends leave, Nora comes home, we play games and eat snacks in front of the fire, we read books, they sleep, I watch a movie, you get the point: I’m proud of the day and had a blast spending time with my daughters and their friends as they giggled their way through the afternoon.  I love my daddy-daughter weekends, that’s the real brag here, and I’ll soak up my time with them any chance I can get.  But for now….we eagerly await Alison to come home to, well, whatever it is she’s coming home to…

*Look, don’t who the heck mIndy Weiss is, and if you don’t either then don’t go beating yourself up about it.  If you’re ready this blog then you’re likely in the same age group as me and, well, we.  The reality is that I was trying to land a joke about how I’m better than some famous event planner, but I don’t really know who that would be and so committed was I to not re-writing the part of that paragraph that I Googled “famous celebrity even planner” and her name came up.  Apparently she does stuff for the Kardashians or something.  Anyway, if that joke didn’t work for you, well, it didn’t work for me either so don’t fret, I’m just to stubborn to give up sometimes.  Also, apparently Kim Kardashian broke her foot.