Yes, I made Nate a card for Father's Day, and my gift to him was that we wouldn't find out the sex of our baby until he or she is born. I know, not very imaginative. But an equivalent to what he gave me last month.
We "kid-sat" for friends of ours on Friday night. They oh-so-helpfully dropped off their 5 year-old son with a backpack of toys, knowing that our house is quite bare in the way of items specifically for kids. I mean, I'm sure we could have used our imaginations and figured something out, but it was a nice back up. We spent the first couple of hours at the park, playing on the playground and playing "soccer ball" as Brennan calls it.
Well, mostly Nate and Brennan played soccer ball while Nicky sat lazily on the slide and watched. It was beyond cute to see that Brennan clearly had a thing for Nate. He accidentally called Nate "Daddy" TWICE while playing soccer ball. We all had a good laugh when we realized his slip of the tongue. I melted a little inside.
So:
Who read a book with him?
Nicky.
And who put bandaids on his knee after a playground spill?
Nicky.
BUT who, according to Brennan, always got the first guess for "I Spy With My Little Eye?"
Nate.
And who did he lay next to on the couch to watch the baseball game at the end of the night?
Nate.
If I'd known they would have both cooperated, I would have taken a picture of that moment. But I didn't want to mess with the moment, so I'll just tuck it away in the vault that is my mind.
It occured to me that I am married to a man that will become a dad in a few short months (okay, I'm sure at some point they will seem never-ending. But that's beside the point). I've been with him for over 12 years, have never known him to babysit (on his own), take any dad-training courses, or read any parenting books. "My Boys Can Swim!" doesn't count because it's only about the pregnancy.
So how will he change from "Regular Guy" (I mean, "Amazing Stud", of course) into "Dad"?
At one point on the playground he said, "5 is a pretty active age. It's a good thing you get to build up to it."
I guess that's exactly what he'll do.
His mom gave him a very cool book called "Dad and Me" which is like a baby book in which you write in the story of the pregnancy and baby's firsts, but is also meant to document things about the dad so his kid learns about him. There's also lots of spaces for the dad and kid to write and draw things they like to do together, so it's something that will be used for a few years. He said, "I have to fill this stuff in, by hand?" Meaning, he hates writing long hand - he prefers to type. Hey, maybe he can type and cut and paste. In any case, it's a cool book. He also said something to the effect that he should get started on it - there's a lot to fill in. I think it will be so cool once it's all done.
I talked to my dad this morning, although it was later in the evening for him. I just can't help looking at him differently now, realizing that he, too, was a Regular Guy at one time, and somewhere along the way became "Dad". Meaning he did things like changing diapers, holding us when we cried whether it was from a boo boo or just from being tired, telling us to "rub it" if something hurt (unless we were actually bleeding), making root beer floats, making stilts, a swing, and teeter totter among countless other things in his woodworking shop, telling "Eerie Weerie" ghost stories, telling us stories of his own childhood, even the ones we'd heard 17 times already, teaching us to take care of what we have - especially anything made of wood, teaching us "Old Indian Tricks" and how to make a Morning Dove call with our hands, playing the guitar and singing made-up-songs like "There Was a Beautiful Girl Named Nicky", working during the day and sharing stories of his day over dinner, making big family breakfasts even though, or maybe because, I hated waking up any earlier than necessary as a teenager, teaching us to drive, telling me that his job as a parent was to set limits, and my job as a teenager was to push them, and talking with me about drinking in college. And oh yeah, the birth control talk that consisted of: "Use Aspirin. Put it between your knees and keep it there." Classic.
On an unrelated note, he told me about a woman at work who's also due in November, so he's been able to see where she's at in the pregnancy and figure that I'm pretty much the same. A cute connection. He'll get to see for himself soon enough when he and his wife return to the States with my two youngest siblings. My adult sisters and I give him a hard time that the younger ones get a number of things that we didn't get growing up,
but I HAVE seen him use the "Rub it" line on them, too. Now that's a timeless piece of father advice.I'll close with a belly pic, even though it's only been one week since the last one. I just had to capture the phenomenon that I had heard of which is called "popping".
Nicky and Nate
19 weeks 4 days
Happy Father's Day
