Home Alone - With Dad
Heard this one? Papa, Mama and Baby Tomato leave on a walk. Baby lags behind, so Papa falls back, squishes him and says, “Catch up.”
Katie Mogen rolls her blue eyes in mock embarrassment as she tells it. “My dad tells the corniest jokes,” she says. But she can’t stop her giggle. At 15, she appreciates Mike Mogen’s humor. It keeps Katie and her sister smiling.
Mike has played both mom and dad to Katie and 12-year-old Rachel since February when his wife, Kim, left Coeur d’Alene to teach English at a community college in Korea for four months.
He wanted Kim to go. She’d stayed home when the children were little. It was her turn to seize the day and the opportunity was too good to lose - for each of them.
“I was looking forward to the time with the kids - and it was better than I thought,” he says.
The in-laws had their doubts, he suspects. After Kim left, they invited Mike and the girls to dinner every week for a month.
“I could tell they were checking on me,” he says, unperturbed. “When they decided I could do it, the invitations dropped off.”
Mike had a trial run last year when Kim went to Seattle for a month to finish her college degree. Rachel wasn’t sure she’d survive without her mother. Mike realized he and Katie were closer than he and Rachel.
That changed this spring.
“We’ve had to depend on each other a lot more,” he says. “That’s led to a real feeling of closeness.”
Mike knows things about his daughters he didn’t know a year ago. How many shorts Katie needs for summer. Which sandals Rachel wants. He coordinated their birthday parties - Rachel’s first boy/girl gathering.
“I couldn’t believe he let her do that,” Katie says.
“I was having my doubts through that one,” Mike admits. “It’s a memory. I couldn’t wait to add it to my journal.”
The laundry and yard have suffered a bit under Mike, and Campbell’s often is the chef of the day at the Mogen house. But the girls don’t care. They know they have their father’s complete attention.
“I’m so glad this happened,” he says. “It’s given us something we’ll never lose.”
Take in the Wiz
The last days of school are so busy that few families have time to go to the theater. But school’s over and “The Wizard of Oz” is still playing at Coeur d’Alene’s Lake City Playhouse today through June 22.
Canfield Middle School students Brenna Dunn and Kylie Knoll trade off as Dorothy. What better way to celebrate the start of summer than with munchkins, wicked witches and flying monkeys? Call 667-1323 for tickets.
Extra helpings
Most of Coeur d’Alene High’s band left Wallace earlier this month fat and happy after two days of work on the movie “Dante’s Peak.” Some musicians stayed to work as extras.
One was chosen for a fight scene.
But better than the work was the generous amount of food the movie people gave the kids.
It included all the ice cream they could stuff down.
Anybody else been in the movies? Which ones should we rent to see you? Roll your credits for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo