This week we are tipping our hats to the Dads, to the King Fishers; after all, this is an all-Dad Blog, so why not all get behind our own holiday? I am the newest new Father of Part Time Authors (you remember my wildly touching and poignant post about adopting Milo... If not, here's a link to one of Chris' posts where he links to it) and so this really is my big Fathers Day! And yet...I am at a loss. What more could I ask for? I am so excited about being a Father to this little boy. And here's the thing, I didn't think I was ever going to be a dad to a boy. As a matter of fact, when the adoption agency told us they had a baby for us, the man across the desk told us we were going to have a girl. And Lindsay and I looked at each other and tears jumped to our eyes and we smiled...another girl, of course. Then the man across the desk said, "No, wait. It's a boy." Then the three of us sat silent, waiting to see if he would change his mind again.
It's not that I didn't want to have a boy; after all, I have the four brothers and we were a band of boys...though they would never let me form a band (it would have been called 'Liv 5ever' )--no, it was never that I didn't want a boy, it was more that boy wouldn't want me as a dad. When I was of age, my parents enrolled me in what was then called "Little. League." Who knows what they call it these days. So, it ended up that it was baseball. And one of the rules was every boy on the team, at one point or another, had to play. Both hitting and sitting in the field. When it was my turn to hit, my "Coach" told me to just stand there and hold the bat. It really became the pitcher's game at that point. If he could throw three balls that pleased the man dressed in Tim Burton stripes behind the kid who, for some reason got the fluffiest glove, then I was out. But if the pitcher tried to hit me or for some other reason displeased the Foot Locker employee, then I got to "Walk." That was my favorite part. I'm still very good at it. When it was my turn to stand in the field, then I always stood in "Right Field"...well, I shouldn't say that; I was always in right field but I didn't always stand. My Mother, who was very supportive (I might add that she should have been, sticking me out in some field all summer long in some Poly Lycra blend uniform deaf to my every protest), set up shop behind the Home Run fence in right field so she could offer her own coaching, "Stand up sweety!" "Leave the butterfly alone and face the field!" "Alright, honey, that's your team leaving the field, and it looks like...YOU WON! Nice job, don't forget your brother's mitt." Sometimes when my mom wasn't there, me and the other team's "Right Field" would just both sit out there on our mitts and swap quips about the jocks. A jock was driving to the airport and saw a sign that read 'Airport Left', so he turned around and went home. The last game of the season they told me about something called "All Stars," and for a moment they almost had me, some group walking around called "All Stars" seemed right up my ally, but then I found out it was MORE baseball...I guess if you were really bad they made you play into the fall for more practice. I was sure I was on the list but I never checked the list. After my mom told me the game was done I picked up my brother's mitt and hopped the home run fence and walked my mom home.
I actually have several stories like this one (I once ducked in church basketball because Craig Phillip, for some reason unknown to every single person in the auditorium, passed me the ball. He threw it so hard that the man in the front row of the bleachers, whom it hit, was rather stunned), but the point is I have now been the Father of a boy for one month, and I love it. First off, boy diapers are WAY easier to change then girl diapers--did you know there is a direction you must wipe when changing a girl? ...don't ask me what happens if you go the wrong direction, but it's a rule every girl knows about. But a boy you can go any which way you want to get that poop, no complications, no explosions, just be gentle with that ambassador and you'll be fine. But honestly, I can not wait to raise a son. I have lots of stuff I can teach him, like the subtle differences between Shipwreck Chic and Homeless Pirate, or to be nice, or that funny and clever is better then good looking and athletic... at least it gets you a hotter wife. And maybe he will want to play a sport one day (Please, Tennis!) and that'll be just fine...he has six uncles (Lindsay's got a few brothers of her own) that will be more than happy to suit him up in kneehigh socks, white knickers, and shoes with spikes in the bottom and send him out into the hundred degree weather to either have someone throw a ball as hard as they can at him or have someone hit a ball as hard as they can at him. And you better believe I will be there, and, sorry Mom, but I'll be sitting in the bleachers. That's my son out there, and I've spent enough time of my life in right field...though I won't be sitting on the front row. You never know when some kid is gonna duck.
