Every Season Comes To An End

Last night I had a Papa Pandas event. It was a send-off for the dads whose kids are graduating from the elementary school and moving on to middle school. They’ll still likely come to meetings and support the Papa Pandas moving forward, but their time as dads with children at the school has come to an end.

We celebrated with dinner and drinks, and a few of us stayed until almost 11:00 watching the World Cup, talking, and enjoying one another’s company before I finally called an Uber and headed home.

As I sat around with these dads, who have now become friends, I couldn’t help but think back to my first meeting almost two years ago.

When I wrote about Papa Pandas a few weeks ago, I talked about walking up to that restaurant not knowing who I was looking for until I spotted a couple of guys wearing Papa Panda hats. I didn’t know any of them. I didn’t know if I’d fit in.

Now it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.

Saying goodbye to a couple of the dads who welcomed me into the group—the same dads I’d worked alongside blowing up balloons for Panda Prom, setting up projector screens for movie night, and organizing school events—made me realize something.

Not that long ago…

they were the new dads walking into their first meeting.

Just like I was.

And somehow, without anyone really noticing, enough time had passed that their season at the school had come to an end.

That thought hit me harder than I expected.

One day Brooks will finish elementary school.

A couple of years after that, Joseph will too.

My time will come to move from active member to Papa Panda alumnus.

I’ll still come to meetings because these guys have become much more than a dads group. They’ve become friends. Just like I wrote in Softball on Monday Nights, friendships don’t survive because they’re important. They survive because people continue making time for one another.

I’ll still show up.

I’ll still welcome the new dads walking into their first meeting.

But it won’t be the same.

I’m not ready to think about that because it means my boys are getting older.

And as much as I wish I could keep them little…

I can’t.

We spend so much time taking the kids to school, picking them up, coaching their sports teams, taking them to karate, reading bedtime stories, helping with homework, and simply being there whenever they need us.

Sometimes it feels like we’ll be doing those things forever.

But we won’t.

Every one of those moments has a season.

Eventually they’ll have cars of their own.

They’ll stay up later than we do.

They’ll outgrow youth sports.

The bedtime stories will end.

The walks to the baseball field that I wrote about in Playing Catch will become less frequent until one day we don’t even realize we’ve taken the last one.

It’s hard to imagine that much time passing.

But it’s exactly what we want for our children.

We want them to grow.

We want them to become capable, independent adults.

Even if getting there means leaving behind the seasons we love the most.

The Papa Pandas was created to support dads while their children are in elementary school. It’s become much more than that because of the friendships we’ve built, but its purpose is still tied to a season of life.

One day I’ll attend my last meeting as the dad of an elementary school student, just as the dads we celebrated last night already have.

For now, though, I’m going to enjoy the season I’m in.

I’m going to appreciate the people who make it better.

I’m going to keep showing up.

Because the goal isn’t to hold onto the seasons that have passed.

It’s to be fully present and thankful for the one we’re living right now.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

Papa Pandas — How one dinner invitation turned into a community of dads and lasting friendships.
Softball on Monday Nights — Why friendships survive when we keep making time for one another.
Playing Catch — The ordinary evenings that someday become our favorite memories.

Little Eyes Are Always Watching

As part of my morning routine I do some push ups, sit ups, and squats. Normally I go back to the bedroom and do them after Jillian finishes getting ready, but the last couple of days I’ve been doing them in the living room after getting the boys up and turning on their morning cartoons.

Yesterday Brooks was sitting on the couch when I got down on the floor next to him to start my routine. He said, “Wait, Daddy,” and started climbing off the couch. I immediately thought he was going to jump on my back because usually when I get down on the ground it’s like Bruce Buffer has just announced the start of the next great UFC fight.

I told him, “Please don’t, Brooks. We aren’t wrestling this morning.”

He looked at me and said, “No… I was gonna do push ups with you.”

So he climbed down, got on the floor beside me, and started doing push ups. His form was pretty entertaining, but who am I to judge? Mine probably isn’t all that great either.

With push ups done, it was time for sit ups. Brooks tried with everything he had but just couldn’t quite get one. So he waited until I finished and asked, “What’s next?” Then we stood up and finished with squats side by side.

He didn’t do them with me this morning—maybe he was sore—but it made me think about all the little moments when those little eyes are watching you.

Like when I catch Joseph staring at me out of the corner of my eye at the dinner table. It’s a good reminder to eat my vegetables so he’ll at least try his. Or when I give Jillian a hug and a kiss and the boys come running from the other room to squeeze themselves between us. Or when another driver does something I don’t appreciate and, before I say anything out loud, I look in the rearview mirror and see the kids staring back at me.

They’re always watching.

Yesterday’s push ups reminded me of something I wrote a few days ago in Playing Catch. I hope Brooks doesn’t remember his batting average years from now. I hope he remembers the walks to the ball field and that Dad was always out there with him. Maybe these little moments work the same way. The push ups themselves won’t matter, but maybe the example will.

We spend so much time trying to teach our kids. We correct them when they misbehave. We remind them how things are supposed to be. We tell them to try harder when they’re struggling with sports, learning to read, or putting together a Lego set. We tell them to be kind to their brothers, to say hello when someone says hello to them, and to remember their “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me.”

We hope they learn those lessons.

But what about the lessons we don’t even realize we’re teaching?

The ones they learn simply because they’re watching us.

I wrote on Father’s Day about the lessons my own dad taught me. When I really thought about it, most of those lessons didn’t come from speeches. They came from fishing trips, baseball games, summers working together, and watching the way he treated other people. Looking back, I learned far more from what he did than from what he said.

Maybe that’s what this project is really about.

On the surface, it’s about me getting healthier, becoming more organized, writing more, creating better habits, being more disciplined, and becoming the best husband and father I can be.

But maybe it isn’t about me at all.

Maybe by trying to improve my own life, I’m quietly showing my boys how they can live theirs.

Because they’re always watching.

Not just on the good days either. As I wrote in Some Days You Just Survive, they’re also watching how I respond when I’m frustrated, tired, impatient, or struggling. They don’t just see my successes. They see how I handle my failures too.

Brooks may or may not get down on the floor with me to do push ups again, and he may never remember that one morning when we exercised side by side. But hopefully he’ll remember that Dad tried to stay healthy.

If he sees me reading, writing, doing the dishes, cleaning the bathrooms, showing up for my family, and treating people with kindness, respect, and patience, maybe those things will become normal to him too.

Because little eyes are always watching.

And maybe the greatest gift we can give our children isn’t telling them how to live.

Maybe it’s simply showing them.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

Playing Catch — Why the memories we make on the walk to the ball field matter more than the game itself.
Father’s Day — Looking back at the quiet lessons my own dad taught me simply by the way he lived.
Some Days You Just Survive — Because our children are watching how we handle the difficult days just as much as the good ones.

When Errands Turn Into An Adventure

Last night we needed to go to Lowe’s to return some flooring we had bought for our bathroom remodel.

We decided to just go as a family and get the kids out of the house. So after dinner we all loaded up in the car and headed out.

We got to Lowe’s, loaded the flooring onto a cart, got Joseph situated, and headed inside.

Almost immediately, Brooks spotted the tiny blue Lowe’s buckets they were selling and nearly lost his mind talking about all the things he could do with them. Joseph, meanwhile, was shouting out everything he saw.

Jillian got in the return line and I took the boys to wander around the store.

They remembered that the last time we were at Lowe’s there had been an AI-powered robot driving around, so we were on a mission to find it.

We checked the docking station. Nothing.

So we started walking up and down the aisles.

“Robot, where are you?” Joseph shouted over and over again.

We searched the entire store.

No robot.

Eventually Jillian called and told us it was time to leave. Brooks was convinced the robot hadn’t come out because Mom hadn’t helped us look for it and suggested we try again as a family next time.

Luckily, when we got outside, Jillian distracted them with the tiny blue Lowe’s buckets.

Crisis averted.

Since we were already out—and had a gift card—we decided to stop for ice cream.

Being gluten-free, my options were limited, so I ordered a milkshake. Jillian got a cone, Brooks got a waffle bowl that was approximately the size of his head, and Joseph got a small baby cone.

While we waited for our ice cream, the boys and I sat outside watching cars go by.

I told them to point out the ones they liked.

Brooks picked Teslas and trucks.

Joseph picked every single car.

After we finished eating, we hung around for a bit while Jillian finished her cone. That’s when the boys decided it was time for exercise.

Suddenly the sidewalk outside the ice cream shop turned into gym class.

Squats.

Jumping jacks.

Lunges.

Walk push-ups.

We just kept calling out exercises and they kept doing them.

By this point I was wondering where all the energy was coming from.

Eventually it was time to head home, get the boys to bed, and get ready for the next day.

Later that night, while working on things for this project, I found myself thinking about the evening.

For Jillian and me, the night started as a necessary errand.

We didn’t want to run errands after a full day of work.

We were frustrated that the flooring we bought wasn’t going to work.

It was another item on a long list of responsibilities.

Just one more thing that needed to get done.

But for the boys, it was something entirely different.

It was hunting for a robot.

It was a new blue bucket and all the possibilities of what could go inside it.

It was ice cream while watching cars drive by.

It was spotting a fire truck and an ambulance in the parking lot.

It was turning the sidewalk into a gym.

As I wrote recently about our hike at Mission Trails, kids have a way of experiencing the world differently than adults do. They aren’t worried about schedules, return policies, or home improvement projects. They’re looking for adventure.

It’s the same lesson I learned during our trip to the zoo. Adults tend to focus on the destination while kids are busy enjoying the experience.

We all did the exact same thing last night.

But we lived two completely different evenings.

For us, it was an errand.

For them, it was an adventure.

I guess the lesson is that there’s fun to be found in almost anything if you’re willing to see it through the eyes of a child.

It wasn’t Disneyland.

It wasn’t a vacation.

It wasn’t even a trip to the park.

It was a trip to Lowe’s.

And somehow these two boys managed to turn it into an adventure.

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