Here Is To All The Dads

Here is to all the dads, and most especially the one to my children.

We've now been here with another newborn for a week. Utterly exhausted. In the ER for an incision check, and in the OB office for a second check, then in again for a blood pressure spike. That's on top of two pediatrician appointments. All with an almost one-year-old in tow.

Add in the usual newborn sleeping/feeding schedule. Me being in recovery from surgery (unable to lift our one-year-old) and adapting to new blood pressure meds. Oh, and I can't tell you the number of emotional outbursts and sob sessions I've had since being home. Everything from apologizing for needing so much help, to feeling like my older son is forever emotionally scarred by my inability to hold him, to just crying about everything -- our whole history -- all the injections and tests, the hospitalizations, the twins, ER visits, my changing body, the c-section, future surgeries...

And through it all, he was present. Not just there. Present.

Giving me hugs, wiping my tears, washing bottles, burping the baby, making dinner, changing diapers, entertaining and comforting the one-year-old, losing sleep, giving baths, driving me to every appointment, juggling both kids in waiting rooms. And not one complaint.

I would cry about my body being such a lemon. That I'm somehow 'healthy,' yet something always goes wrong. That I feel like I'm putting too much on him.

He would do nothing but hold me, reassure me we were in this together, remind me how capable and beautiful I am, and then go right back to being a dad.

When so many, by circumstance or choice, don't do the bare minimum, this is a shout out to the dads that go above and beyond.

For their children. For their spouses/partners. In it for the long haul -- no praise required or expected.

I'm married to one of those.

Paxton

Greyson

For all the baby bump kisses and foot rubs.
For fixing/finding anything I craved on any given day.
For all the bedtimes you've read to your children -- even before they were born
For wiping away tears and calming to sleep.
For all the forehead kisses and 3am feedings.
For the shoulder to cry on (for me and the kids).
For your ability to be compassionate, yet strong, whenever the situation requires.
For loving through the dark days.
For showing your sons what commitment means.
And for being the daddy my children deserve.
Thank you.

It is a special gift.. to see the love of your life holding the little lives you've made together.. and knowing it's exactly where he wants to be..

.. even if he'd give anything for a nap.