Well, it was Saturday and my son has been looking forward to this day for a few weeks...Elena's Birthday Party! With The Carnival just right around the corner, Elena was having her birthday party at a kid's indoor playground that we had been to before and it was a fantastic place. She was also having a theme and everyone was supposed to dress up. She was dressing up as a princess from the movie Frozen.
So my son got all dressed up and fully excited. I was excited for him but I wasn't excited to feel like crap and be around a bunch of people that I didn't know in a very small room filled with food smells that might make me sick. But we went. I even brought a notebook and pen so that I could make notes and map out my training program for the next month while I was there.
But I didn't need it.
We got in the door and my son took off. There were tons of kids that all took a moment to look at me, smile, and say hello. They all recognized me from picking my son up after school every day and playing. I always worry that the big bearded American comes across grumpy (I'm often sick when I'm there at my son's school), strange, and scary but I guess I'm not. We sat down at a table and one of the other parents leaned over to tell me something. What she said, blew me away.
"My daughter told me 'Stefanos father is the best father in the entire school' and when I asked her why she told me 'because he stays after school so we can all play but he doesn't tell us what to do like the other fathers do.'".
I doggone near cried. I wanted to. I fought it. I couldn't say much for a few minutes after that but did muster up the ability to say "Thank you for telling me that" to the mother that did although I guess every other mother there has already heard something similar from their child. Man, I was on Cloud 9! You could have shot me right then and there because everything that I've been trying and hoping to do...I have done!
And then the birthday cake rolled out and the woman organizing the party came over and asked me if I would stand outside for five minutes till they sang Happy Birthday and blew out the candles. I couldn't understand why (and she had no idea that I couldn't get up and walk out of my chair anyway) but she explained to my wife that Elena, celebrating her 7th birthday, was terrified of me and was crying because I was there. My wife explained to her that it couldn't be me because every kid there knows me and sees me every single day at school. My wife told her that I would not stand outside (she didn't clue her in that I could not stand up out of my chair, physically, at that point) and I didn't understand what was going on anyway.
So they sang Happy Birthday and blew out the candles.
A couple of minutes later a woman walked over and spoke to me in English, holding a little girl with a death grip on her mom's neck and tears coming down her face in horror. The mother asked me what my name was and I realized what had taken place. To this little princess I was not a sick old man sitting on a park bench just trying to get by, I was a mean looking old man with a very large and long beard that didn't speak much. Immediately I asked the girl if she was scared of me and she said "Yes". Without hesitation I grabbed my beard and did this...
Half a millisecond later, Elena was dying laughing at me! We asked if she wanted me to leave and she said "NO". I introduced myself to her, shook her hand, she introduced herself to me, and then we became best friends. For the next 90 minutes she walked by and talked to me more than 30 times. She brought me candy, offered me cake and other foods, and even told me about how great Steven is.
When I got up the strength to stand out of my chair and finally leave as the doors were closing, Elena came over to me and said in Greek "See you Monday at school!".
I can't wait till Monday...
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