From Toddler To Preschooler

This is the birthday binder. It is full of receipts, lists, and mementos. The pages are plastic protected and arranged in chronological order. When it comes to throwing birthday parties, I’m really organized.

This is the party drawer.Bob has no idea this drawer exists because The only time I ever hear him mention it is in the sentence, “I forgot about your party drawer.”

This is my (almost) three-year-old. In just three days he will be preschool age instead of toddler age. Two was a tremendous year for him. He gave up his binky, moved to a big boy bed, and started to use the potty (sometimes). He learned to ride a bike, play video games, and to dress himself. He had his first surgery. He went to his first hockey, baseball, and basketball game. He learned letters, numbers, and shapes. He developed a liking of Nickelodeon shows. He picked Thunderstruck by AC/DC as his favorite song. Also, he learned to drive.

Night Of Sharks

Written by Bob

For the last couple of months, I’ve wanted to take Matt to a Worcester Sharks minor league hockey game. He’s already attended a Worcester Tornadoes baseball game, a Providence Friars basketball game, and multiple New England Patriots practices, so a hockey game would complete the big four sports. With only two games left in the season, I happened to receive a “buy one get one ticket free” coupon for last Friday’s game, so I figured we’d check it out!

When we pulled into the parking garage, I didn’t have any cash as I assumed we’d be paying for parking on the way out, but I was wrong. I had to park in a handicap spot and we quickly ran across the street to the convenience store ATM to get cash. After that brief distraction, we walked over to the arena.

The first thing Matt noticed was the giant shark mascot named Finz. As I finished paying for our tickets, he ran over to see him but just at that moment, Finz was whisked away by security to head down to the ice for the start of the game, ruining our chance for a good photo opportunity. Matt didn’t take this diss personally, and later told me that Finz was his best friend and would be coming to his birthday party.

A visit to the souvenir stand resulted in another bobblehead being added to Matt’s collection. The bobblehead was of a player named Thomas, which Matt got a kick out, thinking I meant Thomas the Train. “No Dada, that’s not a Thomas bobblehead. I want a Percy bobblehead!”

After getting hot dogs, french fries, and pretzels, we finally made it to our seats for the start of the game. About 10 minutes in, Matt had finished all his food and decided he wanted M&M’s. Later, we would also have Reese’s Pieces and nachos. Although we got two tickets for the bargain price of $17, we more than made up for it with $50 in food!

During the first intermission, Matt was mesmerized by the zambonis, or “street sweepers” as he called them. They also flew around a remote control plane, dropping coupons to the crowd. I’m pretty sure intermission was Matt’s favorite part of the night.

During the second period, when the crowd was cheering, I told Matt he was allowed to yell as loud as he wanted at the game and didn’t have to use his inside voice. So, he stood up and at the top of his lungs shouted “When are the street sweepers coming back?!?”

Matt ended up making it to about halfway through the third period before he started to fade and we decided to go home. On the way out, he took a try at shooting hockey pucks in the lobby, but he swung the hockey stick high off the ground like his t-ball bat, and probably would have decapitated someone if we weren’t the only ones around.

When we got home, Matt wanted to stay up to tell Mom about his fun night when she got home from work at 10:30. “What did you guys do tonight?” she asked him, as I had only told her that I had planned a special father/son bonding event but didn’t provide details.

“There was a broken red light and Dada said to fix it,” Matt said, referring to a non-functioning crosswalk light we had encountered on our walk back to the parking garage. She kept asking what we did tonight and if he had fun, but he kept obsessing over the broken traffic light.

Although his favorite memories of his first hockey game involve zambonis/street sweepers and broken traffic lights, it was still an awesome night!

Spring Air

I love the transformation that our home makes with the change from winter to spring. Daffodils in a glass mason jar. Snow boots swapped out for rain boots. Pepper moved back outside. Pepper craning her neck to sniff each gentle spring breeze. Storm doors turned into screen doors.


Then of course there are the arts and craft projects. The springtime is my favorite time to break out the real messy ones because we can take them outside for quicker clean up and also for the reason that we don’t need to look further than the brilliant colors of nature to feel inspired.

Try as I may the mess doesn’t always stay outdoors. “I’m just washing the rocks a little,” Matthew says while standing at the bathroom sink, with a bowl full of rocks, water, and hand soap.

“The sink feels grimy,” Bob observes later that night and casts a suspicious glance my way. I shrug as though I can't fathom why it does.

Then this morning I sat outside in the fresh spring air, typing up this blog, sipping on a homemade smoothie (thanks  Bob!), and listening to Matthew play;

“I am a firefighter,” he declares and pulls on his clunky rain boots.. “Uh oh, I hear the bell ring!"

"I've got to get my boots on,” he takes off his boots and then puts them back on. Then he takes off down the stairs and running across the yard.

I just love the spring.

Beach Trip & Easter Weekend

“Do you like penguins?” Matt wants to know, making small chat as we pull into the parking lot of the beach. Since the start of the week the temperature has doubled in number making the weather perfect for the beach just in time for Easter weekend. We chose to go to Crane Beach, for the reasons that we have never been there before, and it was described online as picturesque and very clean.

The weather was not perfect enough to swim, or at least I thought so, but there were plenty of hardier New Englanders plunging themselves into the Atlantic like it was August and not April. Matthew got his clothes soaked twice, once by tripping when filling a bucket of water and a second time when playing soccer with Bob near the shoreline. The salty warm air dried his clothes both times, not that he minded much. It was as relaxing of a day as we had set out to have.

On a side note, Matthew would not forgive me if I didn’t mention one of his fondest memories of the trip; we saw a diesel train (commuter rail) pass us during the ride there.

The beach trip helped to lift our spirits as this had been a sad week for us. We had to say goodbye to Bob’s grandfather and namesake, Robert Rodak. To us he was “Tutu” the name Bob chose to call him as a baby. Tutu is one of the people I feel very lucky to have met in my lifetime. He still held the hand of his wife in public, even though they had been married for sixty years, and together they raised four children, one if which had special needs. Tutu was someone who never allowed others to think for him and formed his own fair opinions about things. I will always be grateful to him for being a strong influence in the type of husband and father Bob is today.

Our Easter was low key but enjoyable. We had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. We went out to breakfast and saw the Easter Bunny there at the restaurant.