As a Father, if you’re going to disappoint some of them, you might as well disappoint all of them…

I wanted to post this last week when it happened but did not get a chance but since that night this scenario has come up over and over again, just not to the same extent.

The night it first happened, was a special night in the Urban Daddy household.  Determined to get back into some semblance of an exercise routine, I made up my mind early in the day that I would run on the treadmill that evening, by hook or by crook.

Since I’m still within my 3 month window of a new job with much greater responsibility, and the stress / excitement of meeting new people, learning new systems, figuring out acronyms and being on my toes all the time, I have found myself quite exhausted by about 10pm, which means that is around the time I tend to fall asleep on the couch when trying to; watch TV, read, blog, play Cityville, or… exercise.  Very unusual for me as I’m used to 1-2am sleeps with 6am wake-ups.

This night was exercise night and the beginning of a new schedule for me.

New Routine – Thursday night.:

Eat dinner with the kids (not unusual at all)

Stewie piano lessons

Give Berry a bath

Linus annoy mummy during math lesson

Then switch…

Linus piano.

Berry and Stewie before bed snack.

All kids in bed by 8:15 and I’m going to treadmill for 1/2 hour before I have a shower, then run out to grab milk.  I really want to begin getting to bed at a reasonable hour – it is currently 12:33am so that is not happening.

Then it all fell apart.

Urban Mummy wanted to talk to me.  We didn’t talk much the previous night and she barely saw me today and she wanted to chat but I patted my flabs and said, “Sorry hun!  I have to treadmill”.  She was disappointed.

I went to check on the kids and here is what happened;

Walked into Stewie’s room, and surprisingly he was still awake.

“Stay with me, Daddy”, he said.

“Sorry kiddo.  I have to treadmill right now so I can shower, get milk and talk to your mother before she falls asleep or kills me”.

He was disappointed.

I went from there to Linus’ room where he was sitting up in his bed too.

“Lay with me, Daddy and tell me a story, please”.

“Can’t buddy.  Have to go treadmill before mummy goes to sleep.

He gave me his pouty disappointed face.

Out I marched and right into Berry’s room where surprisingly she was up too.

“Rub my back and stay with me Daddy”, she said.

“Sorry, sweetie, I have to treadmill.  Sing for me and I will tuck you in when I’m done.”

She was not happy either because she didn’t sing for me and she usually does.  “Bla Bla Blacksheet”

Out I walked.

4 people wanted me to stay with them and 4 people got nothing.

Like I said in the title.  Go big or go home.  If you’re going to disappoint someone you might as well disappoint all of them.

Dads…  You turn.  What would you have done?

Related articles

• Ah, those kids and the things they say… Was I this clever / funny as a kid? I doubt it. (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)
• Should I be concerned that my kids are smarter than me? (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)
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Help is on the Way…

I mentioned on Twitter (@urbandaddyblog) about the treadmill that we ordered from Sears and that was dropped inside my front door for me to move downstairs.  Well, I cannot lift a 130lb treadmill by myself so I reached out to my buddy Eric of Campus Discs http://www.facebook.com/campusdiscs?ref=ts&sk=wall and he helped me get it downstairs in seconds and he even took the heavy end!

So I made him some coffee – Starbucks VIA Columbia – and gave him cookies but I still don’t think that compensates for the shlepping that beast down to the basement with me, so I want to give his business some props.

Eric owns a company called Campus Discs.  If you check out his Facebook page, which I linked to above, you’ll see that Eric, or one of his fine, trusted employees travels the globe (or Southern Ontario) to sell used CD’s, DVD’s, Blue Rays and new vinyl records to students at various establishments of higher (left-leaning) learning.

In case you were wondering what the kids these days are buying, box sets are very popular; The Sopranos, Soap, 2 and a 1/2 men, anything WWE, as are classic movies and a bit of everything on the music side.

I asked Eric if he takes requests on his Facebook page and he said he used to but a lot of people want the most popular stuff and quite frankly everybody and their uncle sells that stuff, so he continues to bring the goods and kids spend all their hard-earned OSAP and meal plan monies on his musical treats.

So if you happen to see this and are at one of these locations, go buy something… Wait… Lots of stuff to compensate Eric for having to shlep my treadmill with me for just cookies. 

I will say that the History of the Intercontinental Championship is an amazing 3 DVD box set that I got for Eric and it’s AWESOME!

You can also follow him on twitter @campusdiscs.

Thanks Eric!  I went for a 30 minute walk tonight!  Couldn’t have done that without you. Oh, and Sears Canada, if I had ordered a fridge, or a bed, would you have left it in the middle of my front hall too?  I get it that the 5pm-9pm delivery timeslot became almost 10pm and the guys were exhausted and one guy holding his shoulder, but they could have hung out for an extra 5-10 minutes while I unpackaged it – helped me get it downstairs and took all the packaging.  So not cool!