A Little Help from My Friends [#AVMTour]
A couple of months ago, I realized that among the many new friends I’ve made recently, almost none of them have kids. They’re great people and lots of fun to be around and go a long way toward making the single-guy side of my binary life enjoyable, but they’re not parents. I used to spend more time with other parents, but there’s been less of that over the last year or so. This is a problem, because raising two little girls is hard as heck. I have lots of questions that only other parents can help me answer.
Enter Facebook.
I don’t know what you see on Facebook, but I see lots and lots of posts about kids. Other popular topics include running, teaching math, art, city planning, and bacon. But mostly it’s posts about kids. This makes total sense, of course. Facebook is all about sharing, people like to share what’s most important to them, kids are pretty darn important to their parents, and many of my high school, college, and church friends are parents. Thus, lots of posts about kids. Which is great, because it means I can connect with a bunch of other parents pretty much any time I have a question.
Like, “Should I take my kids to see the South Rim or North Rim of the Grand Canyon?” Or, “Where can I get a windbreaker or jacket for a little girl at this time of year?” Or, “What’s fun to do with a nine-year-old and a five-year-old in San Francisco?” I’ve posted all three of these questions to Facebook in recent weeks and received many helpful answers. Thank you, Facebook friends, for being so helpful to a single dad trying to plan a vacation out West with his kids!
Speaking of that vacation, the girls and I just checked into a hotel in Three Rivers, California, about 45 minutes south of Sequoia National Park. We’re almost halfway through our summer vacation, which I have dubbed the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Tour. We’re seeing the largest of each: whales (animal), redwoods and sequoias (vegetable), and the Grand Canyon (mineral). And, yes, our trip has a logo. And a hashtag. We started in San Francisco on Saturday, went whale watching off the coast near the Farallon Islands, visited Muir Woods just north of SF to see the redwoods, and spent today traveling east so we can see some sequoias tomorrow.
We’re having so much fun, but it’s tough going on a trip like this as a single dad. The bathroom stops alone are logistical nightmares. Hannah is being just about the best big sister I could ask for, but she’s only nine. The girls need constant supervision, and, as I say quite often, there’s two of them and one of me. I’m on constant alert for potential security threats. One of my biggest fears is that something will happen to me that will prevent me from caring for them.
Which is pretty much what happened on the whale watching tour the other day. Hannah and Lily seem to be natural seafarers. Me? My new goal in life is to never get on a boat again. I spent the first four hours of the tour trying not to hurl, and failing twice. I was a wreck. The hardest part wasn’t the nausea, however. It was the knowledge that my two little girls were on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and I couldn’t watch out for them like I wanted to. Right then, I hated the fact that I was a single parent. I needed a back-up. My girls needed a back-up.
What got me through this? I kept thinking about my Facebook friends. Folks I know from high school, from college, from church–they’re some of my biggest cheerleaders. I imagined posting something about my miserable state of affairs, and then imagined their encouraging responses. Had I had an ounce of 3G out there off the coast of San Francisco, I would have posted something, too! But even without an Internet connection, my friends gave me strength.
As did a couple of my fellow whale-watchers. Earlier in the trip, a couple had asked me if I had some spare Dramamine, since joining the tour had been a last-minute decision for them and they hadn’t come prepared. I shared my Dramamine–and took a couple of pills myself, for all the good it did. Later in the trip, when my face was probably 80% green, this couple came over and checked on me, offering me something for my stomach and volunteering to keep an eye on my girls. I still didn’t let the girls out of my sight, but at that moment, that little bit of kindness meant to the world to me. Someone noticed my distress and offered to help.
Once we headed back to San Francisco from the Farallon Islands, the journey was smoother and I soon felt much, much better. I got to enjoy a bit of the trip with my girls. During the last half hour, they fell asleep in my arms, exhausted from all the excitement and ocean air. It was a charming way to end the day, at least until I realized the next morning that I had picked up a nasty sunburn while the girls dozed on either side of me!
Best of all, we were able to check off the animal portion of the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Tour. We saw two blue whales, the largest known animal to ever have existed. The blues were quite a ways off, but we were able to see their spouts (the captain literally said, “Thar she blows!”), fins, and tails. I got a few photos, although they’ll need a little help from Lightroom before they’re presentable. And we saw a humpback whale not 50 feet from the boat.
It’s humbling to think of these giant animals living their lives out in the vast ocean.
It’s also humbling to know that God has blessed me with friends who answer my questions and cheer me on and with random strangers who show kindness. I may be a single parent, but I’m not alone.
Images: Blue whale by Mike Baird, redwoods by me, and the Grand Canyon by Ignacio Izquierdo, Flickr (CC).