In the month leading up to Father’s Day, we’re featuring a different great dad every day. Today, it’s Eric Bolton. In Eric’s words, his bio:
I’m Eric Bolton of the San Antonio Boltons. My family and I live in the suburb of Boltonshire. It’s a nice place but few people like to visit. Kind of like Utah. I’m 38 and currently have five kids and only one wife. Not like Utah. I’ve been married eight and a half years. My oldest is 17 and youngest is 3. My oldest is by definition my “step-son”. That will be the only time you see me refer to him as such. He is for all intents and purposes my son. Just putting it out there because there might be some confusion when reading some of my responses below. My wife and I our expecting our sixth child in September. Yes Sixth! I’m a D-List Dad Blogger. Doctor Who Fan. Will only make time to watch The San Antonio Spurs during the play-offs. Considered a dork by most. And they’re right.
My first memory as a father is… There’s your stereotypical father answers about holding your baby in your arms in delivery room and saying, “I’m never going to let anything happen to you…”, but I can’t remember if I thought that or not. There we’re other things going on at that time. It was late one night a few days after coming home from the hospital and I was holding my daughter Loreli. I was trying to put her to sleep, and was just talking to her and praying over her. I remember saying something like, “I love you so much, and I know there’s times where I’m going to screw up and I’m going to hurt you. As much as I want to be, I’m not going to be the perfect father. But God in Heaven is the perfect Father. And I’m entrusting you to Him because He will never screw up or hurt you.” When I said that my week old daughter’s face lit up with eye wide open and a giant toothless smile on her face. I knew at that point, along with my wife, I’m going to have help with all this.
My wife is my hero because…she does the dirty work. She’s the one who takes the kids to the doctors or makes sure my son’s paperwork and forms are all filled out for school. She’s the one who is always thinking about trying something else, when I’m just trying to make what we have work. She’s the one who deals with the fits every day. She’s the one believing that there’s more to my baby’s headaches than what they seem. She’s the one who homeschools and teaches our kids and tries to find different ways to keep our children interested and attentive. She’s the one who worries if she’s doing the right thing. All super heroes at one point or another question if what they are doing is making any difference in anyone’s lives because the change isn’t visibly apparent. But in the end, they are. They see their three year old count to twenty-one. They see their four and five year old doing double digit addition. They see their first grade daughter read at almost a third grade reading level. Then her 16 year old son graduates high school. Graduates at 16. Sixteen!!! It’s not all about academics, but she loves our kids. She’ll do anything for them. But because of the sacrifices she’s made to be involved in their lives and not give up even though it doesn’t seem like anything is being resolved yet. That’s why she is my hero.
If you and your wife could vacation without your kids, where would you go? Some beach resort. Possibly Atlantis. Or really anywhere with limited cell phone service.
If you could go on any vacation with your kids, where would you go? My oldest daughter went to New York with her mother last year. I’m going with my five year old son this summer. Even though they all would like to go at the same time, like heck I’m doing that anytime soon! But the place we can all agree on is Disney World.
What’s your favorite meal to cook for your kids? The kids love the nuggets from McDonald’s. Well we don’t feed it to them for every meal so I decided that I’ll make homemade chicken nuggets. I bread the chicken and everything. Throw in some veggies and mashed potatoes, etc. Spend close to an hour and a half from start to table. Nothing. They move it around and say they’re not hungry. I even serve it with the McDonald’s BBQ Sauce. Nothing. So I’ve learned that the more time we spend on making dinner, the less they’ll eat. So I just throw down handful of dry cereal on their placemats. They ask for seconds with that. Oh and Spaghetti too.
How are you like your own dad? When my dad was my age, he had five kids and worked an awful lot as well. His grand total of kids ended up being six, as will mine.
What sports team must your kids like? Texas A&M Aggies. This is where I went to college. I’ve told the kids, “If you go here, you’ll get a free ride…”
What sports team can your kids never like? University of Texas Longhorns. Here’s the deal, my oldest son is currently going here. He’ll be a sophomore in the fall. Suffice to say he is not getting a free ride. But he is also corrupting his siblings and they now support the Longhorns. Ugh!!
If fatherhood was a beer, which type of beer would it be and why? I’m not a beer drinker, but I loves me some Dr Pepper. So my answer is “Dr Pepper”. It’s made perfect by so many different flavors, and I have to have it every day or I will have withdraws.
Describe your perfect Father’s Day. I’ve never made anything about me, so it may not be the standard answer. But after church, grill some stuff BBQ pit and just chill. Don’t worry about the dishes, the clothes or anything that might have broken in the past twenty-four hours. I don’t need to watch TV, because the chance of making it through a show without being interrupted during the day is pretty slim. Just not doing anything or going anywhere would be awesome.
Make sure you head over and check out Eric’s work at Welcome to Boltonshire. You can also follow Eric on Facebook and Twitter.