The TriDad Life

Dear Beanpod,

We’re well on our way now. You are growing fast, just as fast as time itself is going by. Every day we notice something different about you. You are, little by little, discovering the capabilities of your being. My favorite new thing you are doing is emitting these loud noises; not screams, more like you have literally just discovered you can make noise and you like to entertain yourself by making loud noises. I love that it seems you are really enjoying these daily discoveries. You are simply wonderful.

It sure is getting harder and harder to find time to write to you with all the hustle and bustle. Many things they said would happen when you arrived are coming true. We sprinted fast through the holidays and into the new year, Mom went back to work, the Detroit Lions are miraculously still in the playoffs, and all of the sudden, I haven’t written to you in about 2 months. Here we are though, another window, another chance.

In today’s note, I want to share with you a few things about life I (re)learned vividly this past weekend on a strange, random, and on the surface, wholly unnecessary, trip your Mom and I took to Nashville with your uncles, John and Rusty.

A few months before you were born, a random idea came across my head. Don’t ask me why, but I will admit a margarita may have been involved.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to go to a Cher concert with John and Rusty?”

Once the idea moved from my brain and exited my body in the form of an audible question, there was no “turning back time.” Before I knew it, tickets were purchased, flights were booked, accommodations were arranged…even flamboyant, one-time-only disco attire was purchased. Our date with Cher, and with destiny, was set for January 2024 in Nashville.

We knew this would be the first trip we would take where we’d have to leave you behind. This is a really tough ordeal in the life of young parents. In the days leading up to the trip, we were nervous, even as we knew you would be in the safe care of Grandma and Grandpa Redford. We were as prepared as we could be, and the moment deserved it. We needed to be with Cher, to be with your uncles, to prove we could still keep some semblance of the life we had as young and carefree people.

Everything was set, the moment was upon us. We’d broken the chains, laid it all on the line.

And then, inexplicably, on the way to the airport, a discovery was made that took our breath away.

We had made a terrible mistake. The tickets we had purchased were not to see Cher live in concert. What we had purchased were, in fact, tickets to “The Cher Show,” a musical based on the life of Cher.

Translation: No Cher. Cher’s not there. We’d been catfished.

Here we were, leaving you behind for the first time with great trepidation, spending way too much money, flying hundreds of miles to meet your uncles in Nashville on a random weekend to see a show about the life and times of Cher – a show that we found is coming to Detroit in just a few weeks.

In the last couple days, I’ve thought about what great wisdom that I wanted to impart on you from this recent moment in your Dad’s life.

What we discovered, of course, was that this trip was never about seeing Cher live in concert. We felt silly, but you know what, there are worse things in life than to feel silly. And I mean, come on, Nashville might be one of the world’s best places to be silly in. For 36 hours, we galavanted down Broadway, going up to every band at every honkey tonk on the strip, regaling our story and begging them to play “If I could turn back time.” We made quick friends with everyone we met who were wondering why the heck we were dressed like we were. We ate hot dogs on the curb bought from a shack called “Weenie Fever.” We made memories we’ll have for the rest of our lives – we’ll always have that time that none of us read the fine print and traveled across the country to NOT see Cher, leaving our 3 month old behind.

There is so much more I could say. I look forward to someday you might ask me about this trip, and I’ll be so happy to sit down with you and tell you more about this time when your Mom and Dad and uncles were so darn silly.

What I want to say now, as I close this note, is that its important to realize and enjoy that deep down, life really is unpredictable. It’s much harder to do these days, as we live in an age where predicability is essentially currency. Our economy runs on predictability, and I surmise as you go through your education, you’ll be presented with tools and gadgets and methodologies that will equip you to predict and plan your life. These are not bad things, of course.

But my hope for you is that despite all that, you’ll enjoy it when things go differently than you expect. That you’ll find humor in situations where you are caught holding the bag. That you’ll sometimes be out too late and eat at places called something like “Weenie Fever.” That you’ll maybe not take yourself too seriously, and that you’ll be surrounded with people, like your Mom, like your uncles, that will compound your joy in these moments, because they see life the same way you do. It’s just great to be alive, and experience anything at all.

Well, I think that’s about all I want to say about Nashville. Maybe we’ll go there someday together. Until then, we’re enjoying every little moment we have with you. We’ve got you, babe.

Love,

Dad