The Undying Love of a Daughter for her Father.

So my daughter is now three.  She can talk and she can put her own pants on, she knows how to use the toilet and she chooses not to.  It's a fantastic stage of life. Of all the skills she is mastering right now, the one she really enjoys most, the one she practices most and with the most revelry is, the eye roll.  I mean she's three.  Honestly, where does she get off.  She needs me to wipe her bum after she goes to the bathroom and she's rolling her eyes at me?!  And the thing is she really practices it. At least once a day I'll get and eye roll that didn't quite take the way she wanted so she'll stop, reset her eyes, and then with all the same over the top distain she'll start again.  I've began to tell her that when you roll your eyes at someone it means you love them more than any other thing on the earth.  Unfortunately, that only solicited yet another eye roll...which was deserved, granted.  I will give her credit for her timing, I mean she's three and yet she knows that an eye roll goes after Dad has said something super duper hilarious and she really wants to laugh but knows an eye roll will illicit a better reaction.  And she's right, I'm blogging about it right this second.

Please don't tell me that I can look forward to many more in the years to come, okay. I got it.  Girls roll their eyes at their dads.  It's clear. Listen, it's not the fact that her eyes spiral to the back of her head when I jump out screaming from behind the shower curtain. It's the fact that she is THREE. One. Two. Three. Where did she learn it?! It's certainly not my go to response when I deem something is beneath me. Quite the opposite, I like to look a thing right in the eye and tell them they are beneath me.  So it's clear. An eye roll is not clear.  It's muddy.  Maybe a fly flew by.  Maybe you are only having a stroke.  There are lots a reasons her face would do that after a well timed, in front of her friends, fart joke. I should have her checked for stokes.

All in all, she still hugs me more than she rolls her eyes at me.  She still laughs hard when she swings in her swing right into the back of my head.  This is really such a fun age.  She is able to tell you what she wants and she can explain to you why she's not going to do what you want.  And she's old enough to be told that if she doesn't listen to me and do every single thing that I ever say, then tusks will grow out of her nose and her feet will turn into hands and we will have to go to the glove store to get her a nice set of black gloves to walk to church in.

Which, I suppose, only gives her one appropriate response...but she's three.

Friends with Kids

(Warning: Don't watch this if you hate happiness, family, or juice.)

One of my absolute favorite things about being a dad right now is that I can feel these genuine friendships blossoming with my children as they get older. 

I love being a dad. I’m not minimizing the hard stuff. Sleep deprivation. The fact that any “personal” belongings are actually viewed as “communal” by anybody under 48.” Hoping your sarcastic remark didn’t do any permanent self-worth damage. And don't forget the weight of perpetual hope that you are somehow instilling every needful virtue, encouragement, and compassion directly into their souls. 

But I think some of my very happy moments lately are when I feel them looking at me like a friend. Still the dad. Still the mentor, or the referee, keeping things in bounds. But also...we’re friends. We have inside jokes. We listen to each others opinions. We’re vulnerable with each other and tell embarrassing stories. We share spiritual experiences. We do impressions of people. (Not of you, but of other people.) Together, we hate the dog that keeps pooping in our front yard. We get excited about going to the Creamery for ice cream, or when we see a preview for a movie that completely blows our minds. 

I’m not doing everything right. But when my daughter is telling me a story and throws in a made up accent because she knows I’ll “get it” and laugh - or when my son is running off to play with friends and invites me to come with him - I feel like I’m doing something right. I feel surrounded by friends within the walls of my home. 

My extraordinary inheritance

The first time I remember feeling like a father was ... let me explain.

When I showed up for my first date with Amelia, I knocked on the door and, when she opened it, I thought three things: "She is beautiful," "She's out of my league. Enjoy this one date." and "Her kids seem really great." She was a single mom of a boy (Aidan, 6) and a girl (Isabella, 18 months).

I was 34. I had never been married but had dated women with kids before. Some I got very close to and some I never really got to meet. If I was allowed to be around my various girlfriends' kids, it was always heartbreaking when things didn't work out. I mention this because it's important to understand that I definitely knew what was at stake, having been through it before.

By the time I met Amelia, I was more confident about who I was, what I wanted, and where I wanted to go in life than I had ever been before. I was on the right track—finally—and in just the right headspace. I had come to grips with the fact that I could be single forever or, at least, for a really long time. It was all right. That didn't mean that I would avoid marriage; it just meant that I wouldn't let the pressure of finding someone to spend life with make me choose someone just because they were nice or pretty or cool. I wanted to be a dad almost as much as I wanted to be married, but, again, I wasn't willing to stress, settle, sacrifice, or impregnate just so I could be.

When I started dating Amelia, I fell fast for her. Because I loved her so much, it was inevitable that I would love her kids. I'd arrive to pick her up and, while she perfected her make-up, I'd play Ring Around the Rosie or London Bridge with her daughter and have pillow fights or play Find the Hotwheels with her son. These kids were amazing individuals. In six months, Amelia and I were married. Insta-family.

On that day I became a guardian to two wonderful kids. Aside from hiccups here and there, I really took to the role of father figure. But, you see, as I recall the events of the last seven years, it's difficult for me to single out one defining moment where I finally felt like a father because every moment with them kept defining it.

But, I think I can narrow it down to a handful of them.

With Aidan, I'm his step-dad. We've always gotten along but it's been a challenge to know how to fit in to his life like a dad without it feeling like I'm trying to be his dad. We do a pretty good impression of a father and son though. For us it's been soccer in the backyard, me letting him win. Laughing at jokes that only he and I get. Playing video games and screaming at the action. Nerding out about some show or game or film. Showing him something I loved, like Back to the Future, for the first time and him loving it too.

There are the moments Patrick wrote about where you've been driving and they're all asleep and you have to unbuckle them and, without any words, you pick them up and their hair is wet with sweat and their fists are clenched and they nuzzle into your neck and you carry them to bed and kiss them on the forehead and they make that noise that can only be interpreted, in that moment, as thank you.

One time, when Amelia and I were engaged, Bella needed to spit out her gum and I, without a thought, held out my hand and she, without a thought, spit it into my hand and I threw it away.

The day of our sealing (pictured above).

The times Izzy got hurt or scared and I was the first person she ran to.

There's the baptisms, blessings, confirmations, and ordinations. The recitals, performances, and concerts. The bedtime prayers and tuck-ins. Christmas shopping and Christmas morning. The middle-of-the-night stories or jokes to soothe them.

Adoption day.

There is Bella's adoption day when she legally became my daughter and I got to testify, before a judge, that I wanted to be her dad and how I would always do my best to love and protect her.

Then, there was the day I married Amelia. Right before the ceremony, Bella was crying because she couldn't see her mom. The sweet two-year old couldn't be consoled. I watched as moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and others tried to help out. Finally, I walked out from under the arbor, gently picked her up, put her blanket over my shoulder and just held her. She nestled her head on my shoulder and stopped crying. Instantly.

So, it might be that moment. Still, maybe you should ask Bella if she remembers when she first felt it. Because, as much as these moments feel like "dad" to me, until I became Dad to her, I never truly was one.

2nd Favorites

When my Mom and Dad were younger, they had a baby.  It was 1974 and everyone else was having kids, so they knocked one out. And then there he was, perfect, dependent, theirs. Immediately following my oldest brother's birth, my mom went through a phase of wondering who was going feed that screaming thing in the other room. All had been fine in the hospital, someone would sneak out the baby after she fell asleep, feed him all night long, then sneak him back in the morning.  Well, at home she was the only one with boobs and therefore the only one to get the job done.  She found it a bit thoughtless of her new son to want to eat every two hours though, she supposed, it was decent of him to empty the burgeoning bulges banging between her shuttering seemingly slender shoulders.  It wasn't until a tear duct didn't open and she had to take him back to the hospital to have it gently opened--in those days they used a large fish hook and pressed it deep into the duct of the newborn's eye and gave it a slight jiggle to insure a reasonable passageway for the tears, which at this point were bountiful, as he was far too young for any sort of pain medicating, but was a ripe age for a hook in the eye. (None of the last sentence was an exaggeration.) Holding her screaming, eye-bleeding son, she vowed to never, ever, let anything else ever harm him.  And he was hers.  And she was his.

They named him Michael John.  Michael because it was the cutest name of 1974 and John after his father...and mine.

And then another thing happened.

A few weeks after having her firstborn...she wanted another one. As a parent myself, I think this must have happend durring the soft cooing cry, breast milk poop-phase, when babies are hot water bottles who sleep 23 hours a day and the parent accidentally bonds to the singular expression of their love's affection.  Well, she did and then she went for it and four months after having a baby and three months after liking it, she was carrying her second in her freshly broken-in belly.      

They are 13 months apart.

It was another son.  This one whose tear ducts worked on their own, which was good 'cause she never would have elected for the fish hook surgery and he would have never cried and would have died in 1991 when he saw 'My Girl.'

And then they named him.

You should know that both my Father and my Mother are the second children in their families. And both of them the same gender as their older sibling.  So real seconds.  They both grew up in the shade cast off the family's first explorer.  They never got new clothes, they never got first pick, they never had their own stuff, they never, they never, they never.  Also, they were always shorter, they were always dumber, they were always slower, they were always, they were always, they were always.

And so they named him John.

John Spencer.  Spencer cause it was the cutest name of 1975 and John after his father...and mine.

Tonight, I was cleaning my son's pink bib that was, of course, once my daughter's bib, but I just bought bibs two years ago and I wasn't about to shell out another five bucks for "more manly" bibs?! (Here's a secret: they don't exist.)  And I got to thinking about the seconds.  Now I have a son and a daughter, and because adoption is both emotionally and financially expensive, I doubt we will have any more children.  So he is not really a second, but another first...and an only...and a last, but not really a second. And I remembered my parents and the decision they made to name their first two sons John because they didn't want the second to feel like the second. And then when I showed up, they didn't want me to feel like a second either so they named me John.  And then when my two younger brothers toddled in, they didn't want them to feel like seconds either so they named them both John, too.*

And it wasn't the fact they did it.  That has always made sense to me, it's the fact that it worked.  Five boys and each one actually and totally believes that they are my parents' favorite, though I still can't see how my brothers still can't see that I am so obviously the favorite, I mean, they read this blog, they see Momma's comments, she doesn't read their blogs, she doesn't leave them comments...though I suppose if they had them she would read them and she would comment and they would be fooled again, but again (and still) they would be wrong.

I think it all comes from my mom telling me I was her favorite.  Yes, I think that's what it was. And not in some funny way that she sometimes does when two of us ask her point blank, "Mom which one of us is your favorite?!"

"You are, dear."

"WHAT?! I thought I was your favorite?!"

"You are sweetie, my very favorite."

"BUT YOU JUST SAID I WAS!!"

"That's right, darling, you are."

Though we did have those off-handed bouts for her affection, they were for sport and we all knew the lines and we all played our parts.  But there were other times, when things were quiet and you had just come home from closing night of your Jr High play and you were certain of the answer, because none of these other Johns were in plays, they all auditioned for sports and forced this poor woman to sit on splintered bleachers watching other people's kids strikeout with an iceless diet coke between her legs. I brought in culture, I gave her class, and I did it with padded folding seats!

"Mom?  Who's your favorite kid?"

"You are."

"For reals?  Like really?"

"Yes. It's you."

She never wavered.  Though, I suppose that means she never wavered when the others asked either.  And don't think they didn't.  They still do.  Just last week my oldest brother, the one will the bum duct (not the one with the duck bum) sent out a text to my mother clarifying his status in her affections; he also copied all four other brothers to make sure we got the message...he's 39.

So, scrubbing my son's powder pink bib I silently said a prayer, or wished, or hoped, for two things:

One: That he would never feel like a second child.

Two: That he and his sister will somehow make their way through a whole childhood, and a whole adolescence, and a whole rest of their lives, knowing, that of the two of them, they are my favorite one.








*Michael John,  John Spencer,  John Patrick,  Christopher John,  John Casey. 

Halloween; Then and Now

My wife and I sit around all year and wait for October.  We used to over decorate the whole house and make delicious autumnal treats and throw a huge Halloween party every year, but now we have kids and don't have time for such things.  We literally, right this second, have a "Ghost Garland" from target that was purchased over a week ago that is only hanging by one side, the other cascading to the dinner table...not because it's fallen, but because we only ever hung one side and then lost interest.

We used to begin watching season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (no one watches season one) mid September and would wrap up season seven just before Halloween.  It was nice to come home and have your night all planned out for you; make dinner, watch Buffy; fold laundry, watch Buffy; hook up with spouse, pause Buffy. Easy.  (Sorry, but is that how you use semi colons?) But now we have kids and we no longer do ANY of the a fore mentioned activities. (again, sorry, is that how you use 'a fore'?)


We used to go to graveyards and take pictures of Crypts and Head Stones to print out and distress and hang as part of our October Decor.  (see below) 

 This last one is Washington Irving's Grave

One year, while living in New York City we found ourselves without a costume and had to whip something up because we wanted to go to the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village.  This is what we came up with:

 Dr. Dark and Madame Lumiere 

(we didn't have to name them, but we did...and we used French) 

That's right, take a closer look.

That's all Lindsay's hair.

 This was the last time we have dressed up for Halloween...because then...we got kids.

We no longer watch scary movies because the kids now creep into our room and it scares us.
We stopped buying holiday candy because we have kids and they would not eat anything else if they knew we had any.
We never say up past 10:30 (late, pref 9:45) because we have kids and no matter what time we go to bed they are coming for you at 6:45 am...with two nighttime wake ups...each.

It turns out that all the things you can't wait to do as a kid, you really do get to do...until you have kids! 
 

There is something to be said for getting to watch my kids have halloween, but they do it so poorly that it's hardly worth mentioning.  Milo is 4 months and rarely has much to contribute...except Exorcist style vomit which he offers up frequently.  And Daisy is two and a half and thinks the cheesiest things are scary (ie ghost garland from target). Lindsay and I have perfected our singular mix of Victorian Gothic blended with Savannah Grave Yard with a dash of 1692 Salem Courthouse for our Halloween aesthetic and the kids just don't get it. Which is fine by me, it's a lot of effort to set it all up just to then have some two-and-a-half-year-old wrap the ends of our grey muslin tablecloth around her neck like a cape and tear off tipping the lit candelabra into the piles of Spanish Moss and antique Law Books deliberately scattered on both the table and floor igniting my effortless balance between dilapidated library and spell casters squat.   

While it's true I love my children, more then anything, it will be nice when they grow up and we can get back to having fun on Halloween.