March 9, 2004 - Tuesday
Maybe this afternoon was a good example of something specific and fun over the last few days that I did with the boys, and it was like icing on the happy-dad-days cake. I took Harry and Jeremy to a little "circus." It was no big top show, and had no animals, just a collection of jugglers, acrobats, and magicians. But, they're young and it was a fascinating outing to a new place and they were both intrigued and cautiously excited enough to make it special. Better still for me, they were extremely attentive, staying close to me and listening and minding when we went to buy hot dogs and when Harry said he needed to go used the bathroom. A mother sitting next to us with her daughter even commented how good they were about waiting patiently when I was collecting our things at the end.

But, the good discipline is really only a side show to just playing dad and being with the boys, laughing with them, guiding them through a mysterious place, and keeping up their excitement and interest. The show itself was rather modest, the clowns were on the subtle side for 4- and 2-year-olds, but by the end they had both learned to clap (Jeremy is awfully cute clapping, Harry is more reserved and more likely to turn and ask questions about what he just saw). Naturally, much of the time in an outing like this I'm just another father herding two little boys around and much of the time I very self-consciously felt just that way about it. But that's all right. Sometimes even that is even kind of fun.


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