A Dream Dies

Sorry for the silence on this end of the spectrum. I've been on a vacation, of sorts, since last Friday. Except, we didn't go anywhere, so according to CNN and their online 'writers', I wasn't on vacation, I was on stay-cation.

Which I, of course, read as "stay cat ion" and immediately think "well, that's dumb...it would immediately go searching for an anion or, at the very least, a lone pair of electrons." Whichever, it's a lame word.

My kids, of course, are also on vacation as my daughter shuffled off this scholastic coil back in early June, and they're quite pleased to have me home. So much so, that they wake when the very first ray of dawn peeks itself over the edge of the world and filters through the trees that surround our house. It wouldn't be so bad, but they begin fighting immediately upon waking...maybe not fighting, but it involves lots of little screechy 6- and 3-year old voices being raised above a comfortable level for human ears.

This isn't too much of a problem, but these tiny voices usually culminate in the coup de grace, wherein Tank, my three-year-old son, comes into the bedroom and demands politely asks for me to make him breakfast. This is nothing new, as he requests of me every day that I make his breakfast. I'm fairly used to it as it's a daily occurrence, so it's not much of an issue.
Except for the other day.

See, the other day, I was having that dream again. You know the dream. The one where I'm playing football for Notre Dame. Oh yes. Chubby Chuckles [1] liked me, because I was a leader on the field, barking commands back and forth with the other players. Normally, I'm an offensive guy, but this day, I was special teams and defense. I remember screaming "No blocked punts! No blocked punts!" up and down the line, and, after we punted the ball away, trotting to the sidelines where Chubby Chuckles himself slapped me on the helmet with the color-coded play-chart of genius and told me good job. I went back out on defense and after a series of plays, I nabbed an interception off a deflection, but I caught it in stride. I came around the lines yelling "Blockers! I need a blocker! Block that guy!" The offending would-be tackler was taken down, and there was nothing but open grass and the end zone before me.

I should, at this point, tell you that the offense had managed to push the ball deep into their zone before my deft interception, so I had a long way to run lumber before I could score the touchdown, but I knew it would be no problem as I heard the entire stadium going nuts (this was a home game) screaming for me, chanting my name, bringing me home. I even saw someone on the edge of my periphery, and I changed directions late and high-stepped out of his tackle. My team mates were screaming, jumping, yelling, pumping me up with their enthusiasm, and there, sprinting down the sidelines like a big, fat ghost was Chubby Chuckles himself. And I heard one voice, above all others calling for me:

"Daddy, can you make me some breakfast?"

And there, inches from the goal line, enveloped in my finest hour, with all the glory and tradition of Notre Dame football basking down upon me, my reverie disappeared in a single, sudden, soul-crushing "pop".

Instead of adoring fans, cheerleaders, guys dressed like leprechauns or overzealous teammates, I was greeted by the beaming face of my three-year-old pride-and-joy. As the last wisps of the dream faded into the ethyr, despite my desperate attempts to cling to them, to wrap them around my mind like a suit of protective armor, the gossamer lines of my early morning dreams blew away like dust on the wind. The words "Do we have any Pop-Tarts?" ground my morning bliss into nothing more than a memory whose colors were already fading.

Defeated and demoralized, I pulled myself from my bed, yanked a shirt over my head, and staggered downstairs where I prepared three bowls of Coco Puffs--one for each child and another for myself--and as I curled into a ball on my couch, came to the conclusion that I was decidedly not cuckoo for Coco Puffs.


[1] Until the stain of 3-9 is atoned for, I shall refer to him as this.