This week is the week of paper.  Jonathan was making paper airplanes and asked me to make one.  Of course, I said I could make an awesome airplane, then I did what any good father would do.  Googled up awesome paper airplanes. ;)  And I must say, that Dragon Plane is a kickin’ plane.

Couldn’t stop with the Dragon.  Had to make the paper helicopters.  Big hit with our open stairway.  We’re a competitive family, so you can imagine how Daddy had to re-engineer a few times to allow uncontrollable conditions to determine the ‘winners’ of each heat.  Kind of like restrictor plate Nascar or IRL racing I guess.

So, this morning Jonathan wanted to make his own Dragon plan and I had to instruct him to make clean folds as this plan has a lot of folds.  This reminded me of a little paper trivia.  How many times can you fold a piece of paper exactly in half?  Try this with some people if you’ve never done it and have every one guess how many folds you can make.  The answer will surprise you.

Jonathan reminded me after all of this paper fun about the origami dress shirt I made out of a dollar bill once – another Googled adventure.  To hell with “No, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn”.  In the eyes of 4 little kids, I am the ‘almighty, omnipotent Googleman’.

Then there was the time my mother and I traveled to visit family and we were trapped in the hollowed hills of West Virginia after 14 inches of overnight snow.  Bored out of our minds, I put to use my high school drafting class skills and made 5 cubes of paper dice.  That’s right, Yahtzee! all night long.

Wow.  I had no idea I’ve spent so much of my life playing with paper.  I am a cheap bastard.  You can imagine the fun we have on Christmas morning with Origami Elmo, Darby’s Cube, paper Transformers and homemade coloring books stapled hot off the internet presses.  The kids don’t whine when they see an irresistible Christmas toy ad in August, they just ask, Daddy, ‘Can you make us that Barbie Forever Barbie Doll with Tanner the ‘Bowel Moving’ Dog , Daddy?’  Sure I can girls.  Google, google, google.

Author | Dave Darby

Dave Darby is a husband, father of 5, son, entrepreneur, speaker and well, a renaissance man who frequently needs to dump his brain on thoughts about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.