This upcoming weekend is like the Super Bowl of weekends for my family.  We have a cheer competition all day Saturday and a Ballet show all day Sunday.  Kids will be a nightmare, wife will be crazy, dog will wonder why there is so much yelling, house will be a mess, doors will be slammed, hair brushes and bobby pins will be stolen.  Kids will have a few END OF THE WORLD fights, and will treat Mom and Dad like they are the worst people on the planet.

The wife took Monday off work to recover from it.  She will need the day to mentally and physically bring herself back to normal.  I will work from home Monday to do the same thing.  Put some laundry in, and cook a meal to get the smell of hairspray and perfume to dissolve a little.

But, I would not want to be anywhere else… right in the middle of the madness.   I don’t get the weekend baseball or hockey tournaments to attend or coach.  I don’t a bucket list of stadiums or games I have to take my daughters to.  In fact, the Super Bowl parade was yesterday and my daughters never even mentioned wanting to go.  My youngest mentioned something last night about going next year or next time, but that was only because she saw a good excuse to take a day off of school, not to get to see any of the players or trophies, but to skip school.

I get ballet shows, recitals, cheer competitions, watching the US Olympic skating and gymnastics, girly movies, and a yearly Broadway style show.    For the longest time I fought this.  I had my youngest try hockey and I quizzed them on how many teams in each professional sport they could name.   The Bruins games on tv that used to involve the wife and kids are now just me.  If the game is big enough or important I catch them taping me going crazy cheering or yelling at the tv.  

For the Super Bowl this year, we planned on watching the first half at my brothers and heading home to finish the game, but we had to watch the half time show because the girls didn’t want to miss the only entertaining part of the night.  When we finally left and made it home for the 4th quarter they went right to their rooms and put on a Netflix show or Youtube and left me alone in the living room to sweat out the ending all by myself.  

For them though, this weekend is their Super Bowl.   Last weekend was a football game that they got to eat at and hang with their new cousin and watch some commercials.   For me it was watching my favorite football team win their sixth championship and for them it was just Sunday.   

This weekend will be crazy.  I will question my existence.  I will want to throw the kids thru a wall.  I will probably say three words to the wife as we will both be complete mental cases.   But for the 2 minutes and 30 seconds my youngest is cheering on stage and the two ballet shows my oldest is in I will be the happiest I have ever been.   I’ll put my glasses on so I can see, find them on the stage and just pray my heart stays in my chest. 

So, just like with my football team, I am lucky to be a fan of theirs.  I’ll never understand why someone or something blessed me in this life to be a part of theirs. But, someone is rewarding me for something I must have done in a past life.

As a Dad, I get two Super Bowl weekends in a row.   This one however, I don’t have to sit thru commercials or a dumb half time show.