#dabears

We had such a great time with all of you on Sunday! The friendly rivalry paired with the see-sawing score kept things exciting in the house. A few of our employees are HUGE Raiders fans – and one insisted I pose with his Raiders flag!

It’s Nick Foles day!! We trust in you Saint Nicky, and we got to believe on the Bears too!!

Yesterday was parent-teacher conferences at my daughter's new school.  I've been happily surprised that her middle-school transition has seemed to be low-drama, and her school has a fancy-schmancy online system that I can look at her grades on.  So I knew that things were going well - no real dread going into the meetings.

In the first meeting, one of her teachers was like:  "She's very shy and quiet."  I immediately felt my face flush at this mildest of criticisms - and one that I actually mostly agree with!  "Uh-huh," I said with a little bit of a tone.  I really didn't mean to; it was just "Papa Bear" instincts rearing up.  I took a deep breathe and got my shit together.  The rest of the meeting went fine.  She is shy and quiet!  Calm down, Doug!

I really don't think of myself as unrealistic about my kid.  I'm not one of these parents that says their kid is "creative" while the kid is scratching "Fart" into a table with a pocket knife.  I think I'm eyes-wide-open.

But the Papa Bear instinct is fierce sometimes.  I remember years ago when we forced her to play soccer for a hot minute, I was in peak Papa Bear mode.  She didn't know what the hell she was doing, was lost among a bunch of mini-Pelès, the ball whizzing past her.  I wasn't worrying about her scoring; I was worried about her feeling humiliated.  It was awful to watch her out there so out of her depth.  We had thought it would be a good experience, a good lesson in teamwork and listening to a coach and, ya know, exercise.  But instead it was a lesson in "sign your kid up for soccer earlier in life."  

Other Papa Bears at the game were ready to beat the ref up for a bad call or because their kid got tripped, even though he was totally fine.  I was pretty uncomfortable around these Rage Bears, glad that I hadn't previously lost my way so much that I thought yelling at a ref in front of a bunch of kids was a good idea.

Anyway, kids are almost always fine without our raging - our Bear instincts mostly just get in the way.  I'm glad I didn't freak out on this teacher when my kid is actually getting good grades and everything is fine.  But it was weirdly close!  It's the animal instinct, like trying to protect your cubs.  

Be careful!  We all have that inside us, but we have to be wise about when to bring our natural instincts to, um, bear.  (Sorry)