Ep 14 💪🏼Who’s Ya Daddy?🖤

✅ I guess what I would say is that dreams can really make your morning bizarre and meaningful.

✅ There is more than one Dante in the world

✅ Miserable mornings can still be magical, stay engaged and look for the magic

✅ Being a Daddy….is just the most amazing thing ever for me.

✅ Being called daddy by a sweetheart is really affirming and attractive…dont make it weird.

✅ And finally….as Gloria Gather says, “God is in the interruptions of my life, and He’s seldom in my plans”.
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Phil Wickham: Till I Found You
https://youtu.be/Ewhz3pCk9vM

Balance Of Nature

Transcript

So about a year and a half ago my best friend, tells me how my actions towards her are “daddy like”, because when I went to spend an afternoon with her I brought her a box of my garden produce and snacks and things that I wanted to share with her because i like them, and I liked her. When I moved the box from the backseat of my car to the backseat of her car, she responded with “aaaaaw, just like a daddy”, I hadn’t ever had a grown woman say something like that to me, especially one that i had a crush on. Honestly I felt mortified by my perception of that phrase and a little self conscious about my age because she is a few years younger than me, even though we have known each other for most of our lifetimes. So out of embarrassment to what I have accustomed the secular usage of daddy Yunno “who’s your daddy” I followed up her comment with, “or a husband”. Turns out that both of us were thinking the same thing. There wasnt an inkling of kinky in her comment, it took me a year to figure that out. When i asked her what that meant to her she responded with, “daddy is a protector, provider, dominant, capable, experienced, chops wood, and buys coal, holds me softly.” When that definition replaced my preconceived notions, i was humbled and very emotional about how ennobling her comments were to me. I felt ordinary, just plain ol dad. But what she saw was a glorious honorable showing up for it all…Daddy.

Now if you dont already know this Daddy’s or single parents aren’t able to activate their personal Airplane Mode. Its disabled most of the time. 

So Sunday night/Monday morning I dream that i am talking to someone, and they tell me to listen to a noise they are going to play for me. So i intently listen, and in the distance i hear the clanking of something metal falling onto the floor. It awakens me. I realize that the noise isnt happening in my dream, but rather in my house. My first thought is that the dog overturned the trash can to get at the chicken bones that we tossed away from yesterdays meal. So i rush into the kitchen to save her life from the chicken bone shards, and to prevent a messy kitchen dogtastrophe….and nothing. Nothing spilled. Nothing gotten into. I think, well thats weird. Now i know that The sound didnt match the pot that my favorite houseplant resides in that my friend gave me…so if my sons angel dog is safe from chicken bones and my gifted house plant is ok, That’s pretty much all I’m worried about, I mean we’d have to make the dog into sausage if she touches that plant. so whatever else it is I dont really care about…Now i intentionally avoid looking at the clock cause….well cause i dont care to know what time my sleep was disturbed, its my day off after all (not the night off, just the day off). and I’m going back to bed, except for now i realize how dry my mouth is…so i get a drink of water with my Kerr jar cup on the microwave….then I realize that i need to go pee…so after i get done shaking the dew off of my lily i then head back into the bedroom and lay on the bed wondering what in the heck i should be worried about. I cant sleep cause I am Remembering that i was told in my dream to listen to the sound, i think gosh anything that a dream wakes me up for, outta be a little important, so i get up again. This time i check the back porch. Nope, aluminum trash can that holds the dog food is still upright. No raccoons 🦝 scavenging on the back porch this night. BTW if you chase a raccoon out into the yard and bark at it like a dog, they will run straight up a tree and it makes it really easy to ….. well lets just say they dont eat the dog food or kill the chickens after that. So back to my dream awakened non sleeping nightmare,  I walk from the enclosed back porch into the living room, and turn on a lamp. There laying on the couch is the dog, on the floor is a metal bread pan, and as i look back to the dog i see that next to her is some object that looks a bit out of place….cause its the dough from the bread pan that I set in the sunny window sill  in my Sunday afternoon fashion to rise so that we could bake bread and make the house smell like heaven. Well its half gone now, so i take the rest from the dog, pick up the bread pan and realize that my sons phone is laying there on the couch where the throw pillows are supposed to be. I remember that he will be taking his phone to school today (with my permission) to check in with me if he goes to a friends house after school, and i better make sure its charged. So i pick it up to check the charge…3%…dang it…that must’ve been the reason for my dream wake up….right? so i go to plug it in and it takes a quick hit like its charging and clicks off. So i pull out the cord and turn it around hoping for a better connection on the other side, you apple phone owners know what i am talking about. Then as i put the cord in firmly, i look at the phone to make sure that it’s keeping that lightning symbol for charging as i carefully put it down on the bookshelf. And in watching for the charging symbol i notice the time on the phone….dang it…..i didnt want to know that it was 4am. My sleep now feels irreparably interrupted. Cause I am thinking about not fully awakening so much that i am now nearly full awake. But then it hits me, 4 am is 5 am Utah time. I know that because I HATE daylight savings time more than I hate a railroad tie Creosol sliver shoved under my fingernail, more than i hated putting 4 purple and orange stitches into my own chin after splitting it open while night swimming at a Scottsdale resort while i was living with Mesa AZ with cousins and other roommates in a rental house, and definitely more than i hate having slower drivers pulling out in front of me on my way to work….uuuuugh i hate that. Wish i had me some missile launchers for those moments so i could Pew Pew booom that car right off the road so I dont have to slow down. Then i realize that my daughter is leaving for work at 6am Utah time, which is 5am Arizona time and that means i need to get up at 4:30 Arizona time which is 5:30 Utah time to make her breakfast so that she can leave by 5 Arizona time which is 6 utah time…yeah, now i am not only wide awake but i am in a full fury mode over daylight savings time. Come on Utah, get your crap together and change it.

I then take the bread pan and the dough and return to the kitchen, dispose of the dough and put the bread pan next to the sink for washing in the morning…..the normal morning that I am not yet awake for…another thing I am trying to avoid thinking about. Then I go to the freezer and find a breakfast burrito I had purchased for myself a few days ago, and in an effort to preserve some sleep i write a note, mostly in the dark, on the back of a bill from the power company so that my daughter knows where she can get some breakfast and I can go back to sleep. By then i realize its just after 5 and she isnt awake and getting ready for the day, so i return to my room and set an alarm for 30 minutes away so that I can wake her. Then i snuggle up next to my favorite plaid throw pillow and i lay there in bed thinking, no one is gonna believe this story, or possibly many people are gonna relate to this story and so i better write it up, cause when i wake up in my normal morning, I’m not gonna remember this. So i grab my iPad mounted on the magic keyboard and i begin to type. After getting mostly through everything, my 30 min alarm goes off, now I am irritated because the wake up alarm i set to get my daughter out of bed by 5:30 Ut time which is 4:30 Az time is interrupting my scripting, so i growl as i go to turn it off. then i go and open my daughters door, psssst….hey Macy “yeah” are you supposed to leave by 6 Utah time? Yeah, but not exactly 6, just something around that time, i have some alarms set…hmmmmm. Well by now its 4:45 Az time which is 5:45 utah time, the utah time doesnt matter and i have to consciously remind myself of this fact as I shut off my mental time zone adjuster. It doesnt matter cause my son wakes up for school at 5:30 Arizona time…which is now 45 minutes away…and i consciously realize that. As i finish my scripting at 4:56 AM time which is who gives a flying leap about utah time, my daughters alarm goes off. Well…night interrupted by a weird dream telling me to listen for a noise, which causes me to wake up, walk through the house…twice, find a dough pan that i had forgotten to bake, and the bored dog couldn’t resist, replace throw pillows on the couch, plug in a cell phone that needed to be charged before morning, realize the time difference and my daughters need to be off to work at a certain time, my promise to make her breakfast, the impending wake up time, all the things i hate about DST and how much sleep i am not going to now get because its nearly time to wake up my son and feed him before he’s off for the day…..if I wasn’t a daddy, you couldn’t pay me enough to do this. 

I love being a dad. Even though I’m not always so good at it, yet i do it, i show up as responsible as i know how. I would absolutely do it again if I had the chance. Not just for the intimate companionship, but for the love of having more children. A whole hockey team if possible. I love having the responsibility of caring for someone, protecting them, waking up in the middle of the night worrying about them, praying over them when they’re sick, and asking God to let me take the illness so that they can rest. It’s not an easy job, even if you only do it decently. But it sure is fulfilling. I gave my sisters plenty of useless advice in raising their children before I had my own. And now I realize, raising children is a very customized experience. Children are like fingerprints, and those fingerprints are everywhere and on everything. Good luck to you aspiring parents. My heartfelt condolences to you who are struggling with raising children or fertility issues. The mother of my two oldest children…

(Cell Phone Rings, my speech-to-text is still activated) At this point my speech to text is still activated as I am working on this very script. I jump from the bed and I see that its my daughter calling, the one that just left 10 minutes ago, this cant be good. I answer with “are you OK?”…….”just passed the Chevron?……. you’re just passed the Chevron?…. I’ll be right there bye.” TIre blew out in her car. As I am sure many of you experience, We have a cell phone dead spot for about 12 miles of highway, and we all know exactly the spots where we can call or text or just forget about technology being connected. My daughter is miraculously calling me from the center of this dead zone with crystal clear reception for about 10 seconds, just long enough to convey her message, and then the call drops. I would complain about that more except for my friend Doug who called me from Hawaii yesterday had just as scratchy signal as we do. So I guess its a thing in places…even on vacation island getaways. Anyhow…..I scramble to get dressed into my fav early morning scurrying daddy attire of a black carhart shirt, gifted to me for Father’s Day, black adidas jogging pants, my thick Fox hoodie, black ankle socks and black fila shoes, topped of with a black beanie pulled from my lunchbox that I would be using on a normal day when I work for money. i dont know if the all black is a subconscious way of mourning my loss of sleep or not. I will have to consult with my therapist on that. Soooo Just as i am leaving the bedroom i get the impression to grab my wallet. I mentally argue with myself that its freaking 5am, and I’m only driving a couple miles to get her. I surrender to the impression and grab my wallet, cell phone, and run out the door. 

As I drive through town and down the road I’m reminded of one of the many times my own father rescued me. At the time of this particular memory I had a flip phone, and a car that should’ve been made into #10 cans a loooong time ago. Something had gone with the fuel injection. Nothing that Ramseys couldn’t fix. Except for the fact that I was on a signal starved area in Dixie National Forest on Cedar mountain. I climbed on top of a tall stump near the side of the road, pulled out my flip phone, extended the antenna, stood on one leg reached my other arm into the air and dialed my dads number. I heard him answer….but that was it. I could tell he was still on the line so I just talked loudly into the phone of my approximate location and to send a tow truck. Well he heard, and he did, about 45 minutes later Hoyts Towing came pulling up. 

That daddy rescue memory is adorably interrupted when I see a small fawn in the headlights in front of me as I am driving through the darkness of town. It hesitates in the middle of the road. Looks back and then forward, Undecided as to whether to turn back or continue. The little thing is paralyzed by indecisiveness. Then just as I slow down to calm her. Out of the darkness behind it comes a tall 3 point daddy buck. The thick antlers are pretty huge for a 3 point and look a lot like they are still wrapped in velvet. He ushers the young one across the road, the leap the fence one after the other and disappeared into the dark morning. It reminds me of Bambi and his daddy The Great Prince of the Forest. A name which the DMV would absolutely make him abbreviate. With the sleep deprivation and the memories, the moment in process, and Seeing that kind of daddying in nature struck a very tender cord in me, and i felt tears trickling down my cheeks. The similarities of that situation to my immediate and past experiences hits me like a ton of feathers. In the background the Phil Wickham song “Till I Found You” was playing on my XM radio channel 63. This daddy weeps when moments like that dog-pile on top of each other. And it was so on that morning. I’m grateful that God trusts me enough to have my morning interrupted by daddy duties. Can you just imagine what our Heavenly Father goes through as He stays up all night worrying about us. I cant. But i felt a small sliver that morning, on a dark country road, darting around wildlife, and rushing to the aid of one He has entrusted me with. 

I drove around the chevron fuel station just to make sure she didn’t limp the car back to there and I misunderstood her message. Then as I turned onto the highway another thought sets in as I see a few cars streaming in the early morning hours and I see way off in the distance some flashing emergency lights. I feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck as daddy lion mode activates as it’s now obvious that I have a 19 year old daughter, with flashers on, stranded on the side of a state highway, I easily top over 90 in the 1.5 miles from the turnoff to where she is. I pull in front of her so that she knows its me. We pull the car farther off the road, unload her miscellaneous items into my car, lock hers up for my later rescue and tire changing. But as I get down the road till I realized that my car, which I am now going to loan her for the day, doesn’t have enough fuel. So I needed my wallet after all. We pull into the gas station, fill up my car, return home, drop me off, I walk up the step to the lawn and wait there in the less dark hours of dawn. She sits in the driveway for a few moments. Her foot on the break pedal. I can hear some clanking inside the car, and wondering if she is accidentally unlatching the hood thinking that it might be the emergency brake. But then I realize she is scooting the seat forward because my daddy long legs always have it pushed clear to the back. and then In an instant the reverse lights slightly blink as she shifts into drive and zips off into the morning dawn as the red eye Vegas flights blink through the sky on their eastward bound journeys, and the waining crescent 🌙 moon is glowing through a thin layer of clouds. I point my phone towards the ground for some light across the lawn as I step on squeaky dog toys thinking they are bodies of some innocent random creature that the cat has killed during the night. The phone is on night mode, with a black screen, so very little light is available for a makeshift flashlight. I turn the face of the phone back towards me and i see the notice from Apple Maps, You have 23 minutes to go on your drive to work. I think to myself, I’m already at work. I am always at work as a Dad. This is what I have always wanted. I am tired, I am now hungry, and I am living my best life. 

I get into the house at 5:58am Az time. I finish some thoughts in my episode script, then at 6:10 my sons alarm goes off, time for school, time for me to make breakfast. I make ham and eggs, a biscuit with butter and honey and hot chocolate. I put the bottle of raw honey into a pot of hot water on low heat, and set the timer to 30 minutes because it’s been shelved long enough that it’s crystallized. We chit chat while he eats his breakfast. The hot cocoa is too hot and too much. I add a little cool milk and pour half into my glass. Its really yummy with a biscuit and honey. We chit chat over breakfast. Its usually something Mr Esplin has taught him about water aquifers or a history fact with the Mayans or Aztecs. This morning its about the sacrifices of women, periods, having babies, and body hair. His quote of the week last week was  “Dad, I’ve heard that having a baby is more painful than being kicked in the balls. Is that true? “Well” i responded, “I wouldnt exactly know son, but from what i have seen, its definitely much more than having your cahooneys punted, so yes.” He follows up with “But it’s still not OK for girls to kick you in the balls. Right?”, My goodness the stuff kids will say in a safe trusting environment. A few minutes later as he is standing near the window in the living room checking his phone, which is thankfully now fully charged, he says “dad, quick come look at the sunrise.” I dont think twice, i grab my phone and on the way to the front door i open up the camera. and yeah, it was worth it. Sputtering sprinklers, roosters crowing, morning birds warbling, 45 degrees and the sky is on fire with color. You can find that pic and video on my Podcast instagram account @FYO.Podcast. 

Speaking of fires, My son has this hoodie, which seems more like an adventurers smoke jacket for preteens. Well He puts on this worn and fragrant hoodie every morning before school.  I have been trying to throw it away, because he takes it on camp outs every weekend, has it all torn up, and it usually smells like campfire smoke. Last week, he couldn’t find it, thankfully, so I found the coat, sewed up all the holes, and made sure It didn’t smell like a bonfire. After he found his jacket, he was grumbling about where his hat might be. The moment he found his hat, he scampered into the basement and out the walkout garage With his early birthday present bike. It’s a fancy ride, electric assist pedal bike. And I’m certain that Jeremiah, who sold me the bike, put super glue on the seat before he gave it to us. Because I haven’t been able to get my son off of the bike. The first day he drove at least 10 miles, to the Chevron and back, and around town several times. His dog Hannah follows him as he pedals off to the bus stop. I yell at her to stop and come back, she doesn’t listen to me, he is her person, and she is his dog. If you have seen the movie Coco, you will understand when I say that she is his Dante. They have this inseparable connection, and even when I am home, on a “day off”, she whines at me, like she is missing her other half. I am not enough for her. And I am OK with that. Just like a newborn child, wants their mother more. I am not offended by either, because I am a dad. And that’s how we do things. After a few minutes, I realize that I should go check on Hannah, make sure that she doesn’t hang out down by the bus stop. We live in a very small country town, so it’s not a huge risk, I just don’t want her getting into trouble on the way home. So I drive around the town looking for her, whistling, asking the neighbor dogs if they have seen her, they say nothing. Rude! 

I say good morning to my sister-in-law and her girls as they drove off to school and work, I waved to my neighbor and she’s drives off to her teaching job, and then I returned home to see Hannah sitting on the lawn, waiting for me. She must’ve taken a shortcut. I come into the house, and the honey is still simmering, it needs 30 more minutes, I add more water and reset the timer. I make orange juice and pour myself a glass, then mix in a heaping scoop of My Balance of Nature “fiber and spice”. (I will include an Affiliate link in the show notes) I dont drink it because I am 50 years young this year, but because my daughter works for them, and gives me the healthy spiel and I am convinced. It makes the juice taste a lot like wassail to me. And I LOVE wassail. Reminds me of my mother who passed away last year. I pet Hannah, reassure her that her person will be back after school, she goes back outside and sits on the lawn where she chews things and waits for him to come home. All that And its barely 7:30am. 

All i can say is that its a Good thing I have the day off. I dont go to work for the money, i go to work to get some rest. 

After such an unexpected and heavenly hellacious morning, What might my takeaways be?…..good question

✅ I guess what I would say is that dreams can really make your morning bizarre and meaningful. 

✅ There is more than one Dante in the world

✅ Miserable mornings can still be magical, stay engaged and look for the magic

✅ Being a Daddy….is just the most amazing thing ever for me. 

✅ Being called daddy by a friend is really affirming and ennobling…dont make it weird. 

✅ And finally….as Gloria Gather says, “God is in the interruptions of my life, and He’s seldom in my plans”.