On this day, where everyone pretends to be Irish (while some of us get the special distinction of actually being so), we celebrate with Motherland’s greatest export.
Sinead O’Connor — singing Jamaican Reggae.
Uh…Okay, enjoy.
Six
Dear Vampboy –
It has been a whirlwind few days since you turned the big 6-a-roonie…The family descended upon our home for your favorite food (pizza) and stories of your birth and early life as a baby. Gifts were offered and gladly received. The next day brought a snow day for Daddy, so we got to fly through construction of your new Lego Police Station. Law enforcement everywhere breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that little detachable justice prevailed.
This weekend we had your friends-party, and what a ho-down it was! We hit the sunny, snow-filled outdoors for an afternoon at a local nature center (who knew such a place existed so close to home!). You and your friends wandered through the woods with the environmental instructor, collecting twigs and leaves that would soon become fairy houses. In your never ending quest to be the cutest, kindest kid in the universe, you let your friend K take the fairy house home, since you worked on it together and “I got all the presents, so she should get the fairy house.” Way to keep close to the heart of one of your potential future prom dates, kiddo.
More gifts, and another visit with your cousins ensued. I’ve had to clean your new Little Mermaid dinner set three times now so that it can be used at every meal. Thanks to R, your pre-school wife for that one…Clearly you are still a winner with the ladies.
This morning we talked about all of your friends — how lucky you are to have such love in your life. “I know,” you replied. “Some people don’t have friends like I do.” Truth is everyone should be so lucky…But are luckier still if they have a chance to meet you. Your mom and I are so proud of the person you are becoming; kind, smart, funny, caring — perfect. Our little boy.
We love you.
In continued gratitude for Vampboy’s ability to have this birthday, I am participating in the 2011 Jimmy Fund Walk. Proceeds go directly to ATRT Research and treatment, so other parents and kids don’t have to experience what we did — and so that those who do can see the day their little one enjoys something as monumental as a 6th birthday. My readers are welcomed to honor my son’s birthday, or the birthdays of people you love, by donating now. Thank you.
Big Brother
He is the single most bureaucratic bureaucrat I’ve ever met in my entire life. There I am — happily working through the steps required to prove that I’m not a serial killer (which I’m not, in case you were curious) so that I can be an adoptive Dad (which I’m pretty certain I’d be good at, just a hunch). And there, standing between me and my future, is a wet dishcloth.
Truth be told, he can’t be someone who is wildly passionate about his job. After all, spending day in and day out entering people’s fingerprints into a digital print reader can’t be that exciting, and certainly he has to engage in this monotonous task with folks in need of fingerprinting for far more nefarious reasons. But you’d think that he’d perk up when someone came in with the altruistic goal of being a proud papa.
Yeah, you would — but you’d be wrong.
Instead, Mr. Flat Affect mumbles you through the steps, stopping only to express his distain at the fact you can’t get your wedding ring off because you are one of those rare men who hasn’t removed it from their finger since the day they were married (in my case, 13+ years ago). When you ask whether or not this is a problem, he musters a vocal indication of mild annoyance when replying “WELL, I DON’T WANT YOU TO SCRATCH MY GLASS”.
Last time I checked my wedding ring doesn’t cover my fingerprint, I snap in my head – best to keep it inside in case he decides to throw me out of the DMV.
Nevertheless he puts on the required rubber gloves, and one by one smashes the tips of my fingers against the glass. After a brief moment of buzzing my prints appear on the screen — enshrined forever in whatever database CSI’s apparently use to find the bad guys.
I express my thanks in one last attempt to get him to smile, grab my stuff and walk out of the florescently-lit, windowless office, so that he can move on to his next exciting appointment.
Chapter Two
I am someone who always knew he was going to be a father.
Sometimes it seems our culture presents dads as men who fell unexpectedly into parenthood, as if it was a ditch we didn’t see coming on the road of life. The natural drive, the sense of destiny — that’s often reserved for women, with the “urge” that apparently overtakens them to the core. Meanwhile, dads slink along until parenthood hits them over the head like a sledge hammer, sending animated tweety birds circling their heads while they slip on their Baby Bjorn in some infant-induced haze.
Not me.
Of course, reveling in my natural daddy-drive was sidetracked by Vampboy’s medical drama that occupied every breath of every moment of every day for years — YEARS. Even recent memory, while we’ve moved into survivorship mode, has been filled with the stagnant sense that our vision for family life would always be dictated by a very special episode of ER. It has been hard to get beyond — to take a risk by allowing a sense of hope and possibility residency back in our universe.
But eventually, you have to turn the page, and find a new space to bring forth words that summon the future.
We are adopting a baby.
