#AtoZChallenge: A is for A new name for this blog 📛

New name, same cool Stormtroopers.

A drunken woman led to the renaming of this blog.

Let me explain. I’d been feeling as if the Coach Daddy name didn’t fit anymore. Like, I’d cycled out of it.

I’m still a coach.

I’m still a daddy.

I’m just not … Coach Daddy.

I drove to the restaurant where Camdyn works to pick her up after her shift one night. I pulled my flashy gray Hyundai into a parking space and texted her, as I do when picking up any of my girls: I’m here little one.

(They love when I do this.)

And I waited. There were tables to wipe down, or she forgot the Coke Zero (no ice) she always gives me for picking her up. And three boisterous women approached my car.

Well, one did – the other stayed back.

Are you our Uber? she asked in that too-loud voice that often accompanies a night of Bud Light tallboys. I laughed. Nah, I’m just a dad, I said.

Are you our Uber? she asked in that too-loud voice that often accompanies a night of. Bud Light tallboys. I laughed. Nah, I’m just a dad, I said.

I explained that I was there to pick up my daughter, who works there. You can all the way out here late at night to give your daughter a ride? She asked, swaying only a little now, because this was serious.

THAT IS SOOO SWEET!

You know when things are extra – funny, sad, anger-inducing, delicious, whatever – when we drink? Well, to her, this simple act of picking up a kid after a dinner shift felt like Dad O The Year material.

She smiled at me sweetly in that loving way that many of us do after the second margarita.

YOUR DAD IS SOOO SWEET! The lady told Camdyn as she walked to my car. Dad, those girls were SO drunk, Camdyn muttered after waving and smiling.

She’s right, you know, I told my kid. We drove off and they waved.

She has no idea she had just renamed my blog.

I am just a dad now, and that’s fine. I didn’t want to stop being my kids’ coach, but some things are out of our control. I coach a group of boys and girls who feel like my kids. But my teams always do.

As Just a Dad, I do cool shit. I drive my oldest to California … in three days … in a beat-up Subaru … with a cat in the backseat.

As Just a Dad, I’ll go to my middle daughter’s match in the middle of the week and get easily talked into Mexican food afterward. (Enchiladas = ❤️)

And I can pick up my daughter at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. What else would I be doing? And if a tipsy chick wants to think that’s pretty all right, well … I’m good with that, too.

-30-

9 things grateful: Why not just write the damn blog post? #GratitudeAndShit 🔑

I says to myself tonight, I says … why don’t you write on your blog anymore?

You know, it’s the same thing … no time, I’m just so busy. Hell, I used to stay up until 3 a.m. to stay on a blog schedule. I once spent a morning in a donut shop near Fort Bragg with internet as strong as the coffee (not very) just to stay on a gosh-danged blogging schedule.

And now? If this blog was a goldfish bowl, it’d … well, all the goldfish would be dead.

So I’m grateful for the self-help kick in my own damned ass today to get going on a gratitude blog post. Just like that, it seems, you can go from ingrate to not-ingrate just by writing a damned blog post. Who knew? Not me, apparently.

On the Road: This Time, at Undiagnosed But OK

photo credit: pwkpwkpwk via photopin cc

Last night, before my birthday dinner, I scooped up a handful of pills.

“Daddy,” Grace asked. “What are those for?”

I pushed them around on my hand, and, not for the first time ever, thought about all the different things that would be part of my bloodstream after I took them. There’s one for allergies. Two of one kind to help regulate my glucose levels. And another to help that one.

And there’s a new one. An anti-depressant.

Guest Post: Aunie, From Aunie Sauce, on Fatherhood

photo credit: Infiltration: Jawa In Disguise via photopin (license)

My girls have the best mom for them.

I knew that early. You could see it. Motherhood was a calling for her, and so much that she did before becoming a mother indicated that: Her desire to make a career of being a mom, woman-upping for natural childbirth, advocating for minimal vaccines and a loving connection with our girls.

The strong, loving girls I get to coach today are a result of that.

My guest poster today has that look of rookie promise, too.

Even a Dad Knows How To Behave at Easter

 

Sometimes, I have to call off the dogs with these girls.

Remind Elise that her strikes on goal are a threat to girls’ dentition at times. Stress to Marie that it’s OK to show a little mercy. In practice. Peel Grace off a boy she’s face-planted into the carpet who can’t move his lips to say uncle.

They’re tough.

I once had to go to work after a wrestle session with a littler Elise and Marie that got a bit spirited, and left me with a swollen face and minor bleeding of the mouth. It wasn’t always this way, though.

How’s a dad tell how he’s doing? Only time will tell.

photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

I’m a dad. I’m a coach. I’m many other things – some happy, some comical, some up for debate – but those two constants, dad and coach, really hold all strings attached to the hands typing this.

Time means something different to me, as a dad. I’m not always in a rush. That’s not to say my schedule isn’t next to impossible or that I’m the only guy in town living this life. It’s not because of hopeless resignation, either.

I’m not always on time, but I’m not always late.

I don’t always have a good excuse, and I don’t always keep my cool, but I’d say I’m ice 85 percent of the time.