Lost in the Dad Woods

Saturday I spent the entire day outside with my family. We were cleaning up the debris from a storm 6 months ago. As we burned a mass of upended roots that stood almost 8 feet high (thanks for the great idea Adem), our sons and several neighborhood children roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and poked sticks into the flames. I started to move large rounds of spruce that had been left in a jumbled pile by the tree cutting service we hired. I placed the largest in circumference in the pea gravel bed that used to hold our substantial playhouse/ swing/slide/climbing wall thingy which had blown down in an earlier storm, in an attempt to make an obstacle course of sorts for Atticus, Rohan, and Kai. I wanted them to be able to step or leap from one to the other, maybe timing or racing each other. That was when I had the first in that days series of "dad woulds". Sometimes I don't know what dad would have done... I just know he would have had a really good idea. Sometimes I know pretty much what he would have done but I can't make myself expend the energy to do it. but dad would have and that was one of the special things about dad. he would do the most fun or clever things. unforgettable things.