Father's Daze

Yesterday was Father's Day 2016 (or it was, today, when I'm writing this). Good food, time with two of the three daughters, digital contact with the third, relaxation, Game of Thrones as a nightcap...all-in-all, a great day.

23-and-a-half-ish years ago, when I first became a Daddy, I had no idea what that meant. Not that I didn't have one, but having one and being one are two very different things (same is true of peanuts, cars, and headaches).

When the eldest was born, I didn't have that love-at-first-sight moment that some people talk of, I didn't think she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen (au contraire, new-newborns are not much to look at, all misshapen and gooey as they are), and I certainly didn't feel like my entire world had been turned upside-down (that took at least another 6 or 7 hours).

But as I got to know this little tiny person, and held her, and sang to her, and (one day) coaxed out a smile, and (one day) got her to laugh...the hook was set and I fell truly, madly and deeply in love. I used to leave on business trips from time to time and fear that I'd come home and she wouldn't know who I was. I used to get jealous when other people stole her time from me. I used to stare into her eyes and try to figure out who she'd be. And, yes, I used to watch her sleep and listen to her tiny little breaths, and feel better about whatever else was going on in my day that day. For real. That stuff really happens.

Then we had a second. And it was another girl. And being a strategist and over-thinker, I decided that once the second one was born, I would shower the older one with attention to compensate for the loss of her mother's focus. The younger one wouldn't notice for at least a few weeks and during that time I'd be keeping the older one strong. But that plan assumed I was free to partition my heart that way, which I wasn't. The new little girl had me in her spell the minute I first looked in her eyes. And her bigger sister was suddenly a new person as well. And they were two, but they were also one. And my life was a completely different thing, all about getting as much of both of them as I could.

And we were a family. A whole thing. With internal rules and processes and procedures and routines that only we really knew. And that's what it was like to be a Daddy. To implicitly belong to others, heart and soul, in a love-trance that covered everything else all the time. The rest of the world was the rest of the world. And at the end of every day I got to come home to my very favourite people in the universe. And for them, my return was like the most important thing ever. Every day.

Other (older) parents always told me to enjoy it while I can - "it's gone in a flash", or "once they hit adolescence, they turn on you". And their childhood did pass in a flash, but I think I felt every moment of it and still can. And they never turned on me. They just got bigger and better and smarter and more delicious. And we all became soul-mates...with a deep understanding of each other's weaknesses and strengths and tender spots that you have to stay away from. If there's one club that it's okay to be an exclusive member of and keep others out of, it's this club. Nobody else who isn't your daughter (or son I suppose) or father (or mother I suppose) gets in.

So there we were, hearts full and lives full, when leaving-the-nest time started to loom. A choice to make: Let them go and move on to the next phase of our lives where we sit at home and wait for the time they can afford to give us, OR start it all over again with one more? Go back to the start with the bad nights and the poop and the everything else, or ... dare I say it ... let ourselves get old?

You know what we chose. And I thought I knew what that would be like. How the new one wouldn't quite replace the old ones, but that she'd be some compensation for what we'd partially lost.

Now the older ones were still teenagers at the time we implemented this decision, so when we told them that we would be inviting someone new into the club, there could have been anger and resentment and jealousy and disgust (you know, about mommy and daddy "doing it"). But there wasn't. My first two gave us probably the single most memorable moment of my life with their reaction: The purest and most spontaneous tears of joy in the history of all humankind.

And it's been nothing but pure and spontaneous joy ever since. Anyone who has followed this blog or my Facebook posts knows how I feel about my little one. You may also know how the rest of the "club" feels about her. But if ever there's been a decision that was so clearly perfect and instantly validated as such, it was that decision to do it all over again.

How could it not be? I'm a Daddy. That's what I do best. I'll always be a Daddy. The women for whom I've been a Daddy for 23 and 21 years respectively will never ever ever stop being the babies, then toddlers, then kids, then teenagers, then young adults with whom I am forever utterly in love. And the same will be true when this latest one is ready to go off to school and then who knows where. My heart will break again and then it will be okay again because it's not an end, just a change.

So that's what it's meant and means to be a Daddy. To be in a permanent state of "Father's Daze". Happy, sad, astonished, excited, worried, proud, and completely lost in love for these incredible things that I (we) made - once upon a time, every day of my life since, and (happily) ever after.

(And yes, Daddy didn't get enough sleep once again. And yes, he shouldn't write blog posts when he's in this state because they're always mushy and not funny at all. Live with it.)