The other week, one of my kids turned 12. Yes, 12. If you remember one of the early episodes,

what do you say to a 10-year-old? My, how far we've come. The world being his oyster,

he wanted to spend the day at an amusement park close by. While I thought my days of hanging upside down and spinning in circles until my face

turned green were way behind me, it seems they have returned on the account of my son's

insistence that I ride every single one of the roller coasters with him. Twelve years ago, heck,

two years ago, I would have found this charming, but these

days it just makes my palms sweat. That said, I love spending time with my kids and watching them

have fun. So losing best of three and rock paper scissors to my wife wasn't that bad.

I gritted my teeth and busted out my shiniest dad sneakers and braced myself for a day of an adventure.

We started off slow and with some of the kitty rides and then we worked our way up into the big leagues.

And one ride fairly early on in the quote-unquote big leagues, well, it got me, I must confess. Straight out of the shoot.

I knew this one was going to be trouble.

Just pretend it isn't real, I said to myself.

This is all make-believe.

Just close your eyes and wish it away.

I'm not going to lie.

It actually helped.

I mentally detached myself from the roller coaster.

I got through it.

Whoa, I said, this is great. At least it felt like it at the time. On a few more rides in the

day, I would slip into this checked out state. But then something interesting happened.

I noticed I wasn't checking out. I was missing out.

...