It’s increasingly difficult to surprise my wife and children with a special gift or gesture. Julie and I have been married for 12 years, lived together for (longer), have joint bank accounts and there are several calendars in the house tracking my every move. She knows exactly what I’m up to at any given moment in time. Meanwhile, the kids talk about precisely what they want for their birthdays and Seasonal gift smorgasbords year round. For them, there is no spontaneity on these matters, only expectation and an orderly distribution of their specified spoils. So, I figure the one time they’ll all least be expecting something special from me would be on Father’s Day! This splendid strategy is fool proof... at least as far as unpredictability is concerned. Timing, however, is another matter. Like last year, I haven’t left enough time for turn-around in custom re-setting the diamond earrings Julie has been “hinting” about. There’s no cause to this caper if I can’t unceremoniously draw her attention to them on Father’s Day, right? At the same time, our plans to renovate the basement in the very near future suggest I should wait to upgrade the gaming-system the kids have been requesting for our family room. It would be dreadful to damage a brand new X-Box 360 or Wii shortly after blowing their little minds. Alas, this year I guess I will have to simply wake up to Sunday morning pampering like every other Dad. Perhaps I’ll surprise them on the second time they’ll least expect something special from me: July 21, “Ascension to the Throne of King Leopold I Day” in Belgium... and my birthday.
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