Father + Son = Oddballs!

I love my guys.

I know that probably goes without saying, so maybe I should say I actually really LIKE them, I enjoy them, I marvel at them and just thinking about them makes me smile with love for Who They Are.

The two of them make the most interesting (sometimes challenging ;) ) father-son duo I’ve ever known.

Do you know the juggling story?

Well then…let me tell you.

Last year, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact, Zeb asked Justin how to learn to juggle.

Justin, never having done it but being fully indoctrinated in Google-School, said, “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Oh, blessed YouTube and how you enrich our lives.

(Seriously, can you believe YouTube is only about 6 years old? How did we LIVE without YouTube before 2005??)

An hour later, and Zeb had satiated his curiosity for how one learns to juggle.

Four or five hours later – somewhere around midnight – Justin’s saying things like “Check it out! I think I REALLY got it now!”

Over the past year, Zeb would pick it up again and then stop.

Over the past year, Justin has juggled an average of TWO HOURS A DAY.

Zeb has spent just about ten hours and mastered how to juggle the three ball cascade, several tricks and passing with his dad (video below).

Justin can now juggle six balls, do countless tricks, and juggle anything from balls to pins to rings to puppies if our dog would trust him.

Zeb’s also dabbled with the Diablo and the yo-yo.

Justin is hardcore with the juggling, yo.

(It makes for some great jokes, lemme tell ya.)

And then this past summer, after some deep connecting with what exactly this juggling thing is all about, this awesome duo decided to go pro.

Justin + Zeb = Oddball Juggling!

Oddball Juggling is all about sharing the love and benefits of juggling with other families by offering affordable, durable juggling balls and inspiration with other families.

That’s their mission statement and it makes my heart go pitter-patter. ♥

Seriously, they are for realz. Check this out:

But it’s more than just having fun and inspiring others. It’s a father-son business!

They are selling two sizes of juggling balls and have several videos to get you started (with more on the way!).

And They’re Making YOU a Special Offer!

Oh seriously, I just love their mad business skillz. They used them to convince me (with payments of shoulder rubs) to share their special offer here.

Just in time for the holidays, you can get you and your family your own set(s) of juggling balls for 20% off!

When you go to order through Etsy, enter the coupon code: organic20

In the meantime, won’t you please Like their Facebook page and share this post with your friends and family, on Twitter, Facebook, your blog and anywhere else to help them get the word out? :D

Odessa, Texas – My Father’s Hometown

I wasn’t really sure why I added #8: Visit my father’s hometown, until we were actually pulling closer to Odessa, Texas. It had always been he and my brother who spoke about visiting. But as we were driving down the 20 it suddenly became very clear.

From 1953

There were quite a few gaps in our relationship, some as wide as three years of silence. Others were smaller, missing pieces that you only come to miss when someone’s gone. It is the history, the connection to his past that I crave.

Based on what he spoke about I know exactly four things about his childhood:

  1. That any good dentist could tell where he was raised, because the water there was known for the stains on his teeth.
  2. That he moved away from his hometown and to Las Vegas when he was about 12 or 13.
  3. That he developed diabetes when he was 13 years old.
  4. That he and his friends used to cruise Fremont St before it became the “Experience”.

After he passed away, I found that he was born in Odessa, a bit of history he never really spoke about (he always just bragged about being Texan). I also found I had an uncle I never knew about (I searched all the Harold’s I could find and ended up meeting him and my beautiful cousin a day before the funeral; they never stayed in touch though). I also found a letter from his biological father just after he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and a photo of him that I still own that looks eerily like my dad.

Directory

Odessa Directory

How strange is it to know so little of my dad before he was My Dad? My mom used to tell me stories about her and her siblings. I would visit her childhood home every summer until my grandparents finally moved. And I’ve watched home videos of her growing up. There is a history there, an ancestry I understand. I know my mother’s mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and their stories. But for my dad it’s almost as if he sprang into existence sometime in his 20′s.

So I went to Odessa, in hopes of drawing some map in my mind of who my father The Baby or The Toddler might have been. I guess in the back of my mind I was hoping to stumble across someone who had known my grandparents before they were grandparents, when they were still young and wide-eyed and bringing home a newborn baby boy. I was hoping to sit beside some old lady and hear stories of how my dad, The Baby, would cry or laugh or play with a toy truck while the adults ate together and drank ice tea in the heat.

The Archives

Sept 16 1953 Headline

Birth Announcement

Instead we found a directory that told me my grandfather was a truck driver, an address of where they lived when my dad would have been two, and a birth announcement with the address of his first home.

That home was gone, replaced with a concrete slab. The neighbors said it was a boarding house torn down in the 70′s, giving me more questions than answers.

The second home was there, though, and I tried to imagine my dad, The Toddler, playing in the yard. I tried to hear some child laughing or see some ghost of history there, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t picture what he looked like before the age of 29 or a grandmother who wasn’t in her 70′s.

1121 Texas Ave

Foster

Did I mention my grandmother died in June? No one called me to tell me. My other grandma found the obituary and my mom broke the news to me. And all I could do was sigh with the sadness of it all as that ancestral gap widen in my heart.

I didn’t know until now that I didn’t know the man I called Dad. I loved him and he loved me. But there was always something missing. Connection. History. Maybe he couldn’t give what he didn’t have.

But I can. I can love my dad for who he was, even if I’m not sure who that is. I can love the family I didn’t understand. And I can take what he didn’t give me as a gift, one of understanding just how important it is for your child to walk through the streets of your hometown and know where you once stood.

They all did the best they could with what they had. I have the chance to do better.

Simple Creativity

I told you I was dying to get my hands on something, anything. So the other night I rummaged through baskets of supplies and books looking for an outlet. Zeb and Justin even joined in for a bit.

Arting Together

I used a bunch of old greeting cards, watercolors, embroidery thread, and Mod Podge to make this…this…whatever it is. I don’t know what I’ll do with it but I really enjoyed the process of making it.

...the magic continues

Then I opened one of Zeb’s sketch books (How To Draw Mythical Creatures or some such title) and followed line for line. It wasn’t nearly as fun as allowing the colors to drip and meld and allowing what comes, but it was fun to stretch myself more methodically.

Angry GnomeBanshee


Fairy...ish
It reminded me of my dad’s sketches – the one he drew before his hands lost feeling. I use to marvel at his talent and lament my own lack. And for a few peaceful hours I felt some small connection to him I hadn’t felt before. Like we were both artists, even if I had to practically copy mine. ;)

Earth Day Photos and Thoughts

Bird feeders for Earth Day

Pinecone bird feeders

Solar oven nachos

We spent Earth Day with our unschooling friends at the park – making slushies, eating homegrown salads, feeding ducks the day old bread from the grocery store and making pinecone bird feeders and solar oven nachos. The kids ran wild through the grass and the playground while the mamas chatted or crocheted with plarn. The wind kicked up before we had the opportunity to make newspaper pots for our sunflower or pumpkin seeds – we’ll do it another day instead.

The day was laced with my thoughts of my father and our relationship and my relationship with my son. It hurts me to think I have so few meaningful memories of being with my father. Or so few stories to share with my son. I wonder what I’m carrying on and what I’m rising above.

At what point do we stop being (or feeling like) a child to our parents? At what point do we cease to need them, to desire their approval or affection. Never, I suppose. But it feels strange to me to ache like a little girl for the kind of father he wasn’t able to be. To want to hug him when the only time I felt his touch in the past 15 years was when I sobbed on his lifeless chest. It feels surprising I didn’t miss these things before.

If there is one thing I hope to do right, it is never to leave my child holding moments that will haunt him; to leave many more memories of my love than of my shortcomings. It’s not that I blame my father and although I’m disappointed he couldn’t be more of what I needed as a little girl or even an adult, I’m not angry. I just don’t ever want Zeb to face the loss of a parent with the additional burden of memories you don’t want to remember them by.

It hurts me to realize my dad bought into the idea that “what’s wrong with youth today” is a lack of discipline and instead never saw that his attention and affection were all that was needed to keep me safe. He never understood the desire of a daughter to make her father smile, if only she feels his unconditional love. I certainly felt his unconditional love and pride as an adult, when he no longer had a fear of who I would grow up to be.

I look at Zeb and the mistakes we’ve already made and how it has shaped him thus far and wonder how it was that I didn’t see it earlier. As a parent, how can we not see the pain or humiliation we inflict on our children in the name of “teaching” or being a “good parent” or raising a “good person”? How often do we really take the time to consider what being a good parent means and what the real effects of our actions are on our children? Does it really mean being “the mean mommy”, breaking our child’s will or leaving them to hurt alone? We all do the best we can but how often do we question what we think we know and try to find another, hopefully better way?

That’s how I wish to be different as a parent. I always want to question what is normally accepted as truth or tradition. I also want to look deeper at what I’m really leaving my child - whether it’s a memorial of affection or one of regret. I want to be a safe place for him to land in a crazy world; the parent *he* needs me to be and not the one society dictates I should be. Because he already is a good person. And I don’t want to mess that up.

poem: i still miss you

do you know me now
am i recognizable
i assume i am
but would you still see me
as the little girl
i used to be

Me and my dad

the one who did your makeup
although i don’t remember
more than the photo
that shows your smile
and what i perceive
hope
is a look of endearing love
even though i put pigtails in your hair

Doing his makeup and hair

i don’t hold many memories
of you
of us
although i do remember
when you held my seat
as i learned to ride my bike
i was awfully upset when you let go
when you said you wouldn’t
even if i didn’t fall

1982

do you know where i was
when you died
hiking angel’s peak
at zion
on Earth Day
the same hike
we went on when i was little
i wish i could remember it
or know where i was
or what i was seeing
when you let go
maybe it was something
we once saw together

i’m sorry
for my last words
for my passive-aggressive tone
for implying
you weren’t enough
i swore
i would never let myself
lose another person
with things left unsaid
without telling them i loved them
but I made one mistake
i always thought
we’d get the call
and i would be there
to hold your hand
and whisper
it’s okay
as you slipped away

Road trip

instead
you died alone
in your chair
and i never got the chance
to tell you i was sorry
to tell you i forgive you
for being human
and ask you to forgive me
for being the same

Napping

i still wonder
what you would think
who you would’ve voted for
or what you would say
about my crazy ideas
or my hair
would you listen
and agree
and tell me I’ll always be
your little girl
or would you chuckle
or shake your head
or debate
like we used to

2002

for months
after you passed
i heard your voice
say my name
and i’d want to call you
but then remembered
i couldn’t
i don’t hear you anymore
and i never forget
your gone
but i still miss you
immensely
and i still regret
your worse fear came true
and you died alone

© Tara Wagner April 22, 2009

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