Calli can help you conquer the world!

Yesterday I was stressed at work. The day before that, I was stressed at work. Last week: yeah, more stress. I don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t blog but once a week (FatherHood Friday, as seen at dad-blogs.com! Be sure to check out all the cool moms and dads who selflessly share the lives of their families for your entertainment and delight!) I can hardly take making a decision anymore, because somehow it’ll be wrong to someone.

So. After a stressful day at work, I walked through the pouring rain to my car. Generally, when it’s raining and I feel blue, I imagine myself as David Banner, put my hands in my pockets and whistle the ‘Incredible Hulk’ theme, but this time it wasn’t enough to make me feel better. I had to stay later than I wanted, causing us to miss the performance of Alice in Wonderland I really wanted to take Calli to. I popped the trunk and realized I’d left the laptop back in the office. Perfect. Only I didn’t think ‘perfect’. I try to keep my blog family-friendly, so I’ll leave out what I really thought.

I drove home, rain crashing on the windshield. I did NOT turn on the radio. I just sulked.

So I come home to the family. Calli is inconsolable. She REALLY wants to go outside. But she doesn’t want to wear her raincoat or boots. We plead with her and essentially wrestle her to the ground to get her to don her rain acoutrements. I try real hard to tuck in the raw nerve she keeps stepping on. It’s not her fault I had a bad day, week, and month. She’s just being her precocius two-year old self. And judging from stories I’ve heard, she’s not even all that bad!

Raingear on, Calli, Kat, and their Mom go outside. I pace the apartment, not wanting to be rude to my family, but feeling like I need a moment alone. The half hour in the silent car wasn’t enough. Aw, heck, I’ll go see what they’re up to!

I stepped outside my building in my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robot pajama pants and Legion of Super Heroes t-shirt (a sign I truly don’t care. I normally don’t set foot outside in something like that! I usually match the pants to the t-shirt, come on!) and turn left, so absorbed in my sulking that I don’t notice the family off to the right.

“Justin!” I hear my wife call. I turn to see her jogging back to our apartment. “I gotta get the camera! Wanna go watch the kids playing in the mud?”

I looked over, and there they were: the two ‘sissies’ (sisters, not cowards) were splashing and playing in the mud.

Calli looked up with her big baby blues and said, “Try it, Daddy!”

“I don’t know, maybe later.”

“Peeeeaze? I wanta you to try it!”

“OK.”

Good times...

I kicked off my sandals and let the mud ooze between my toes. I watched Calli and Kat stomp around in the mud. We laughed and splashed and played. I began to think of when I was a kid, and rain was almost magical! Rain was when you went outside and splashed and played and delighted in your merry mess making. Rain’s not a literary symbol for sadness and depression. Rain is liberating and cleansing. I had forgotten that.

Kids will do that to you. Sometimes you have to shake off the cranial-anal disorder to see it.

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When I post Kat’s art, I get comments that say ‘Keep them coming!’ So, I’m happy to oblige!

Today we present some Kat-style fantasy!

Kat, age 1 1/2

As I begin to write this, it’s just after 4 am in the Rocky Mountains. My beautiful wife and two children are still asleep. I’m awake on purpose. I set my alarm for this time. This is my favorite blogging hour. Some days, I miss this hour. I hit the snooze alarm a few too many times, or I do get up and get sidetracked by checking email, my twitter followers, Facebook, and MySpace. But today is special. According to Dad Blogs, today is fatherhood Friday.

This is the first fatherhood Friday I’ve had the pleasure to be a part of. I know it will be the first of many. Since this is my first, I really gave some thought to what I would say today. I have not yet read any other blogger’s previous posts for fatherhood Fridays because I wanted to strike out there and make this my own. I’m sure when I’m done with my post today, I’ll explore and see what others have written to see if I even come close to the mark of what others feel and want to see in these blog entries. 

I thought about trying to take one aspect of fatherhood and exploring that, but I think instead I’ll give you an overall picture of what my life as a father has meant to me.

I crowded my way in to Kat’s life when she was only four. I had met her mother, Bobbette, in an art class and within a week we were finishing each other’s sentences. As a single mother, naturally, Bobbette was cautious about who she let into her home. She didn’t want Kat feeling as though men came and went through their lives. Eventually though, I was allowed to come over. At night. After Kat was asleep. 

Bobbette and I were snuggling on the couch, watching a movie neither one of us truly cared about. Without any advance signal, a little toy car rolled across the floor from the direction of Kat’s room. I remember little Kat stumbling out of her room, big green eyes wide with curiosity. Bobbette picked her up and carried her back in to her room. I remember that little cherub face watching me as it was carried back to bed. I already loved her mother at first sight. Could that truly happen twice? I was terrified.

Bobbette’s almost five years older than me. She had Kat when she was twenty, which means that I was fifteen when Kat was born. The same age she is today. At twenty, what did I know about being a parent? I was too in love with Bobbette to run away, and now I had seen the daughter that people had ‘warned’ me about when I first starting looking at Bobbette with longing. I had no clue what I was doing, but now  I realize that no parent does!

Calli, born perfect!

I was so full of fear. I was afraid that I couldn’t support a family. I was afraid I wasn’t the right father for Kat, thinking that I probably acted more like a brother than a father (Something she’s admitted since), because I still felt like a kid myself. A friend of mine who grew up in a home with a step-father who acted more like a brother once told me, “Those are the best kind. Trust me.” I hope so.

We ‘settled down’ together by actually gaining the certificate that says the law officially recognizes what I already knew: that I would spend the rest of my life with these two young ladies. And eventually, along came Calli. 

Calli was the apple of my eye before she was even born. While she was still inside the womb, when her mother and I would cuddle in bed, we could feel her gently caressing us. We knew she would be a loving soul, and she is. She gives the biggest and best hugs. She can also wrestle harder and longer than any little boy I’ve ever met. Her laugh will bring a smile to any broken heart or solemn face she comes in contact with. She’s the light of my life.

They all are, mother and daughters, the whole of my universe. And I’m not stopping there! As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have a third child on the way. I’m just as terrified today as I was when I first saw those big green eyes staring at me over her mother’s shoulder. But I’m also fascinated, and amazed, and excited beyond words. The things we will all share with eachother, the places we’ll go…

I would not miss this ride for anything…

Kat and Calli sort through their Halloween haul!