I do so many fantastic things as a father that it’s difficult for me to pick a favorite, such as:
- Laying around on various couches while researching my Fantasy Football team and eating Cheez Balls for hours on end
- Acting like I’m super helpful when I clear my own dinner plate
- Letting my kids pick the Netflix show they want to watch if I have absolutely no intention of staying awake
- Encouraging my kids to go outside when playtime gets a little loud, “so Mom can rest” and, “so Dad can avoid taking a sledgehammer to a large mirror in frustration.”
- Nodding meaningfully while Wendy’s helping them through the stress of homework and while I’m lost in thought figuring out what to eat for lunch tomorrow
- Turning the music in the car up so loud that I stop all possible threat of the children hurting their vocal cords while having fun, or communicating, or even looking at each other, so help me…
Anyway, so many fantastic things, but I think one of my favorites is Back to School Interviews. Every year around the time school starts, we ask our kids the same list of questions. The list doesn’t change much at all. The same questions, every year – What’s your name, What’s your favorite book, Who’s your hero, What are you afraid of, and so forth.
We do this because we like inventing traditions for absolutely no reason but upon which our children will place great meaning in their adult lives, and also because, when our children leave the house, we intend to splice all of their responses together for all of those years and ask them, in all honesty, how come they aren’t as cute and engaging anymore as they were when they were five?
Really, we love these things. Watching the change in them year over year is really fun, and gives us some idea about their progress, whatever that means!
So, without further ado, and for super funzees, here is Payson’s Back to School Interview from a few days ago, followed by his Back to School Interview from last year.
Such a change. So much unexpected from year to year. Same room, same kid, 12 months and 12,000 lessons apart.
I look at the bottom one and I see silliness and energy and a big fat bow tie and a kid who has the world on a string, and I look at the top one and I see the same kid, the same fun, the same zest for it all, mixed with a little more life experience and wisdom. There aren’t a lot of seven year olds like that kid on top.
Little man, big world.
Can’t wait to see what he says in the 2018 version.