My Son is Nine Years Old!–A Fishing Adventure

Yup. He’s nine. Hard to believe, really. And let me just add my voices to the ones of parents before me who have said that having two birthdays in a week can be a tad stressful. Even more when one of those birthdays is literally a birth day.

So this year, it was pretty much up to me to make sure TRC had a special day. Good thing I’m still on parental leave. I made him a cake (yellow cake with blue frosting with the Fire symbol from Skylanders on it–in chocolate chips. Everything home made made the chips, naturally.) I decorated the house, blew up the balloons, got the presents (a Skylander, Goonies, and some Legos)–Denisa was kind enough to wrap them for me. Surprising how much work there is when you’re not sharing the load between two people. (Denisa and baby continue to do great, BTW. Baby’s a little snoozeball. She’ll sleep five or more hours at a stretch at night, if you let her. I’m waiting to see how long that lasts . . . )

I also took TRC fishing.

In theory, this was supposed to be a fairly easy thing to do on a birthday. A friend of mine who knows fishing poles had gone and gotten us both a pole, bait, hooks–everything we needed. He dropped them off Monday, and I thought I’d have no problems getting everything set. I’ve been fishing loads of times. How hard could it be?

Well, quite hard. Me saying “I’ve been fishing loads of times”is the equivalent of my twelve-year-old self saying “I’ve been driving loads of times.” Yes, I’d fished. Yes, I’d used poles. But someone else had always done practically everything for me. Tied the hooks on. Strung the poles. Basic things like that. It all seems so obvious and easy when someone else is doing them.

When it comes to me doing them . . .

I spent a lot of time yesterday poring over internet sites, trying to figure out why my reel was going backward (there’s a switch on the reel that lets you do this, FYI), how to tie the right knots, how to attach bobbers . . . I felt like a complete idiot, but I’m glad I did it ahead of time so that when TRC came home from school, I could surprise him with the poles and head out behind our house where there’s a wide stream.

The trip was unsuccessful, from a fish-catching perspective. No fish were caught. We lost two bobbers, one worm, and one spinner. But TRC had a great time and said it was “even better than archery,” which is high praise indeed. I’ll have to go get some more supplies so we can go again soon. I also need to talk to my friend and get some tips on how to have an idea where the fish are hiding. There are supposed to be lots of types of fish in that stream–everything from bass to trout. Now if we could just find them . . .

Anyway, Happy Birthday, TRC. Hope it was a great one!