Go ahead and ruin Father’s Day

To my kids-

It’s Father’s Day. I’ve taken a break from scouring every room of the house in search of your shoes to write you a short letter. As I’m writing this, one of you is standing while you’re eating breakfast despite years of me shouting at you to sit down while you’re at the table. Another of you is loudly slurping milk from the bowl, seemingly for the sake for shattering the Sunday morning quiet in the most cringeworthy way imaginable. Another of you I can’t currently locate. I’m just hoping you didn’t find the open section of drywall in our bathroom, because if you’ve made your way into the walls, we’re going to be late for church.

You can really be the worst a challenge somethimes.

And today, that’s the best gift you can give me.

I never understood the idea that Father’s Day should be a day off for me to sit in a recliner, beer in hand, undisturbed by my progeny. To me, that’s like celebrating National Cheeseburger Day (September 18th) with a salad. Give me an opportunity to do what it is I’m being celebrated for on the day I’m being celebrated for doing it.

Go ahead and use half a roll of toilet paper when you go to the bathroom (with the door open, of course), and when it doesn’t the first time, go ahead and flush again to see what will happen.

Those Legos you’re playing with? Why not drop a couple of the clear ones with the sharpest corners in the most trafficked paths of our house?

If one of you could refuse to share something that doesn’t even belong to you, and another could react to that slight with your best WWE move off the arm of the couch, I’d really appreciate it.

When we hit the grocery store, I’m going to need one of you to snatch an apple from the bottom of the delicately stacked pile in the produce section, while another replies to the nice old lady who asks what your name is by simply shouting “FART!” If the kid that rides in the cart could spend the duration of our trip trying to kick me in a place that would guarantee no more siblings, that’s be awesome.

At lunch, it’d be nice if you wait until the moment I sit down to take a bite to simultaneously topple all of your beverages.

Perhaps you can toss a couple of your most essential toys over the fence of the neighbor who I don’t particularly enjoy talking to.

I’d really like if the baby could just refuse to be comforted by anything other than me standing in some obscure corner of the house, while the rest of you take advantage of my limited visibility by playing a rousing game of “call 911 on daddy’s cell phone.”

The trash can probably needs my car keys more than I do, so make sure to hook that up.

I’d be happy to settle your argument about who would win in a fight between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi even though you’ve watched the actual fight scene yourself 100 times, and know exactly how it ends.

I will gladly read you a bedtime story, only to have to quit after two sentences because you violently giggle the first time you hear the transition word ‘but.’

Go ahead and ruin Father’s Day, because a day of rest and relaxation isn’t what I want anyway. I just want a chance to try and keep up with the four of you, same as any other day. There is no greater blessing than the opportunity I’ve been given to be your dad, even if part of that blessing includes not ever being able to find any of your shoes.

Seriously. Where the hell are your shoes?

Love-

Dad