"Boys" Night Out

Last night was a divided “girls” and “boys” night out. My wife and daughter were off to some sort of home “demonstration” at a friend’s house while my son and I had a father/son “date” night. We were off to a movie followed by dinner. We went to see the kid friendly “Escape to Witch Mountain” which wasn’t too bad. It is rated PG but it seems the rating system doesn’t factor in the excessive violence. I guess excessive violence is all too common so it isn’t so excessive in the ratings guide! In any event my son did enjoy the movie and it appears he is moving on to “regular” types of movies as opposed to the requisite “cartoon” of the years gone by. I think this was the first movie where my son didn’t sit on my lap during the scary parts and in fact he didn’t sit on my lap at all. He is getting older and yes, he is growing up.

I gave my son a choice after the movie of going out for frozen yogurt or going to dinner. He chose dinner at the very nearby California Pizza Kitchen. I thought he would have ordered a pizza but my son was the non-conformist and ordered his favorite of macaroni and cheese. After the Mac and cheese he ordered a brownie sundae which he promptly ate all of the ice cream while leaving the brownie behind. As he completed eating the ice cream he promptly started to complain that his belly was full.

This isn’t the first time nor do I believe this will be the last time of this complaint because it is a somewhat regular occurrence. I did point out that he needed to realize how he felt after eating all that food prior to eating more than he needed but this comes with age. I can’t help remember my father telling me during my first “fall from grace” of my compulsive gambling about how I felt but I promptly forgot and I was much older than my son. Yes, maturity does take a long time in some people such as me and hopefully my son won’t have to learn the “hard way”. We had a very good time just us “boys” and yes, I am so blessed with such a wonderful family.

This morning I was up early to get my run in before the day’s events on the baseball/softball fields. I decided to test myself this morning on how fast I can run a half marathon (13.1 miles). I wanted to run in a local half marathon this weekend but with the hectic schedule along with the cost I opted for my own version of a half marathon. Yes, I ran the 13.1 miles on the treadmill at the gym but it was the fastest I have ever run that distance. I cut almost 8 minutes off my fastest time and I was feeling really good this morning. I do like the half marathon distance and would like to focus more on this distance as opposed to the longer marathon distance. I was very surprised how fast I ran this morning and if I could just run this fast for the marathon I would have no problem qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Yes, my issue is with those last three miles but I am feeling confident especially knowing how well I ran this morning.

My run was done and it was off to the baseball diamond for my son’s game that was first today. My son’s team had been sleep walking for the past two games but today the later start seemed to help. Their bats were alive and the other team didn’t have a chance as my son’s team was victorious 8-2. My son spoiled his streak of going 1 for 2 in all of his game as he went 1 for 3 striking out twice. In his defense his last strike out was a horrible call by the umpire as the ball nearly hit my son and he was a bit taken a back when the umpire announced; “Strike three!” My son wanted me to argue the call but I told him that no good could come of that and sometimes even the umpire makes a mistake and he seemed to brush it off.

As my son’s game ended the entire family was off to my daughter’s game. The games were evenly spaced out today so we could attend both of our children’s game. My daughter’s team hadn’t won a game all season until today. They were finally victorious 11-10 in a nail biter as my daughter was the winning pitcher. She pitched very well in the two innings she appeared and made a great play when she was at shortstop. She walked in both of her at bats scoring twice. She almost made another spectacular play because she didn’t trust her teammate as she tried to tag the runner coming home from third base but arrived at home plate a millisecond too late. All in all it was a good game and I could see the relief on all of the coaches faces as the winning run was scored. I even felt a bit relieved knowing my daughter’s team wouldn’t go winless this season. It was a great day on the diamonds as both of our children’s teams were victorious.