As a criminal defense attorney I receive quite a few alerts via standard mail and email as to various “awards” I have won.  100% of the time there is a fee associated with claiming the award and most attorneys immediately discard the award notice in to the trash or delete it from their inbox.   However, there are a small segment of attorneys who pay for these awards and tout them on their website.  The crazy thing is I have three partners and all four of us received notification via mail that we were determined to be top ten criminal defense attorneys in the entire US.   I felt sorry for the rest of the country having only six available spots for thousands of eligible and likely well deserving attorneys.  While awards and accolades can be earned and bought in most professions, (I just now answered my phone even though I knew it was a solicitor, turns out it was Jeanie from Top Attorneys in North America) you only have to have your kids buy you a T-shirt or Coffee Mug to be labeled the World’s Greatest Dad.  However, if you want to be in the running for Dad of the Year it isn’t that simple.

While being a great dad like I am can be a thankless job, teaching them is even less gratifying.  On top of that, my kid’s respective room parents recently sent out emails about teacher appreciation week, I was shocked to find out they were still doing that.  Granted, having to take on the role of my children’s teacher (at least in theory)  has given me a new appreciation for teachers as a whole, I’m not that appreciative of them right now.   Furthermore, due to the hard  work I have been putting in with the kids I was expecting a dual award this year, not only would I be receiving dad of the year for 2020 but also teacher of the year.  However, my dreams of either came crashing down last week.  Last week was a catch up week, why do they need a catch up week I thought to myself, we have been killing the distance learning thing (other than the two panic attacks I suffered the first week of distance learning).   Well, it turns out Aiden failed to “turn in” a number of his assignments via see saw (an app that allows them to take photos of their work or do the work on the app and send it to their teacher, not to be confused with Schoology which is the online learning platform where all of their lesson plans are placed for them to access and complete).  To avoid having a third panic attack I pretended like I was going to gather his assignments and waited for Shirley to do it, granted it resulted in me having to endure a lot of nagging and pestering, but it was worth every second to not have to try and organize his assignments and try to figure out how to utilize the see saw app.

For those of you who don’t know me, technology is an even fiercer enemy of mine than Governor Whitmer, and watching Shirley navigate see saw as she tried to explain how it works made my head spin and was the rare occasion where I felt as insecure as my teenage self when I sported, acne, braces, and a mullet.  With Shirley haven finally shipped off Aiden’s assignments to his teacher I was quite confident that last four weeks of distance learning were going to be a breeze, boy was I living in my own Private Idaho.  Turns out Parker had failed to complete 14 of his assignments and it wasn’t until Friday of catch up week that we (Shirley) discovered this.  On top of the incomplete assignments, his work product was questionable at best on the things he actually had the where with all to somewhat complete.  Apparently first grade is where you learn how to tell time and one of Parker’s workbooks had clocks and he was suppose to write down what time each clock displayed.  To say he doesn’t know the difference between night and day doesn’t begin to explain how woeful he is at telling time.

Shirley asked me what I had been doing the entire time I was suppose to be helping the kids with their distance learning, and to be honest I had no idea, my mind was blank, as in I couldn’t point to a specific thing that distracted me from properly checking their work, organizing it, and passing the completed assignments to their teachers.  She asked what I was doing last Tuesday, she may as well have asked me what I did on March 12, 2010.  I have officially become Phil Connors and Gretchen Whitmer is my Punxsutawney Phil, every time my alarm clock goes off (figuratively, since I haven’t needed an alarm clock in six weeks) I feel like I am about to relive the exact same day and the only thing that is going to be different from the prior day is my level of ambivalence.  Should we even tell people to have a good weekend since every day feels exactly the same and there is little difference between a Tuesday and a Saturday?

While it is quite obvious I am failing at distance learning, I still can win DOY, even Gretchen and the Rona can’t take that away from me.   My mom had been pestering me to go out to Green Lake and mow the lawn (son of the year is also in sight).  There use to be a community mower but it took a dump so I had to trailer my rider out there.  I threw the kids bikes on the trailer but didn’t have room for mine.  No problem, I will just run while the kids ride their bikes, I should have no problem keeping up with them, right?  Wrong!  As much as they suck at climbing hills, going down hills is such an advantage that I was struggling to stay with them for most of the ride around Green Lake.  When we made our way to the first intersection Aiden was somehow well behind Parker and I even though he had the advantage of going down a number of hills.  Parker and I had made a left at the stop sign and I was instructing Aiden when to make his turn as Parker kept going and I tried to keep running, but backwards so I could watch Aiden.  However, a car decided to stop so that Aiden could catch up, Aiden can only deal with pressure in virtual situations such as video games and froze up, I yelled “Come on Aiden!” and then saw a car try to pass the car that was yielding to Aiden.  Fortunately, the idiot driving the Prius heard everyone yell and slammed on its brakes as Aiden crept out past the stopped car.  Not sure who wins the battle of the Prius v the kids bike, but I am glad I didn’t find out.

We ended up at my sister’s house and chatted with her for a bit.  I had a 1:48 tee time and needed to get moving to avoid having to run up to the tee box and hit (that never goes well).  Parker and I took off figuring Aiden would eventually catch up, he didn’t, I had run roughly 3 to four hundred yards when I realized something must be wrong with Aiden and circled back to find him sitting with his bike complaining that the chain had fallen off.  I immediately started yelling at him and took one of the gatorade bottles (I had one in each hand for the kids) and hurled it as hard as I could at the ground.  “Sorry dad” Aiden meekly said in response to my much needed outburst.  In hindsight I partially blame myself for thinking Aiden would catch up, (even though I blamed him entirely at the time) the kid takes 20 minutes to drop a deuce, he wouldn’t have been able to catch up to Parker and I if we were walking on our hands back to our cottage.  Even though it wasn’t surprising that Aiden ended up stalled at my sisters, it didn’t stop me from questioning/yelling “WHY DID YOUR CHAIN FALL OFF!”

I was in a mild state of panic because Parker was riding by himself and didn’t hear me tell him I was going back to get Aiden.  In my distressed state there was no way I would be able to get Aiden’s chain back on without breaking the bike out of anger so I had my sister throw it in her car (along with her 12 kids) and give Aiden a ride so that I could sprint after Parker.  It took me about a mile to catch up with him and he asked me where I had been, common sense  would tell someone to turn around at some point, but I was dealing with a kid who couldn’t even tell time in Spanish or English, so I wasn’t that surprised that he kept on trucking along.  As I ran to try and catch up to him (I really wish I hand’t forgotten my Apple Watch so I could have figured out my pace, it had to be the fastest I have ran in years) I kept worrying that he would take a wrong turn somewhere and either end up in Wayland or Middleville.  While we had just taken the exact same route on Tuesday he still had no idea where he was going even though all he had to do was follow the lake, can’t believe I trusted him to get all of his assignments completed and completed well with minimal supervision (I thought he was the responsible one).

Upon returning home with the kids Shirley came down from her office and asked/ordered me to unload and reload the dishwasher before I left for golf.  I could have ignored it but it would have been placed in the ledger had I not completed the task.  When I was just about done Aiden asked me to make him lunch, well I have to do that, can’t have the kids disturbing Shirley while she’s working so that I can get to the golf course on time.  Two Quesidillas later I was on my way and only ended up three minutes late for my tee time.  Now I just need to figure out if I want a 2020  DOY T-Shirt, coffee mug, or both.