My Fatherhood

I love being a dad! I heard a comedian the other day suggest that it wasn't natural to want to have children. He is a moron. He went on to say that if any man ever suggested that he wanted kids, that his "man card" was to be revoked. This man is clearly a world class idiot and his hatred for children is probably just a projection of his resentment toward women who obviously and wisely avoid him completely.

I am proud to say that I love my boys and am completely thrilled to be a dad. I encourage any and every man to have as many kids as you can handle. Don't go all NBA or anything- get married to one woman- but have as many kids with that woman as you two desire. It's a good thing.

There are obvious benefits to being a dad. I get to eat fruit snacks and drink capri-suns without people casting their judgemental eyes upon me. I can watch things like Spongebob and Phineas and Ferb completely free of shame.

There are also some drawbacks. You end up subjected to all the songs from Thomas the Tank Engine along with the slightly off pitch English accents that sing them. You are also spit upon or sometimes worse (those of you with kids know what I'm talking about; those without kids, I'd really hate to spoil the surprise). It's somehow not as bad when it's your own kid though.
There are unhappy moments when it comes to parenting, but the good far outnumber the bad and really there's no comparison. Yes, I've had to get after Bryce from time to time but all of that gets erased when he does what he did a couple of weeks ago.

On the 23rd of February, I turned 33 years old. I received many gifts from friends and loved ones. When I came home from work, there was a hand made card on the counter that read, "Happy Birthday, Dad". There was a drawing of the two of us on the outside and when I opened it, I saw that he had drawn another picture and had written a couple of sentences about me. It read, "Dad, I love you. My dad is funny (a revelation which swelled my heart with pride-he thinks I'm funny!). My dad plays with me. Thanks for my swings." Under that he had drawn a picture of his swings and a birthday cake. It was awesome but if I may draw your attention to the last sentence of this lovely card.

My wife and I used some of our tax return to purchase a swing set for our backyard. We love having a backyard and had a few toys scattered here and there but nothing that could occupy a significant portion of the boys' time. So we purchased a lovely metal swing set from Wal-mart.

As I've mentioned, I love being a dad, and if you're a reader of this blog you know that I am a somewhat paranoid parent. I have the ability to see the worst possible outcome of any situation that could slightly cause bodily injury to my sons. I've said it before and it's still true today, that my preferred method of parenting involves bubble wrap and inflatable furniture.

Armed with this knowledge, you may be wondering why someone who is so worrisome would bother having a swing set at all, let alone the death trap that is a metal swing set. Well, when you are a parent sometimes you do things you wouldn't normally do in order to bring joy to your children (anybody who has ever taken a kid on "It's a Small World" knows exactly what I'm talking about).

It took me just about three hours over the course of two days ( I like to pace myself) to assemble the swing set in the backyard. It has a slide, three swings-two standard and a third with foot rests (my guess is that's so your feet are comfortable while you slip off and land in the dirt face first), and a see-saw.

My boys love it. I can only look at it and see utter mayhem and destruction but when I get those visuals, I just chase them from my mind by picturing the smiles on the faces of my boys as they saw what daddy was building them in their backyard. I still see every possible thing that could go wrong- Bryce catapulting Henry on the see-saw; falling of the top of the slide, backwards; falling of the bottom of the slide (you may question this one but that's exactly how Bryce broke his arm a couple of years ago); whacking each other with the swings; and of course, the whole thing just collapsing down on top of them. I picture these things I just try not to dwell on them. Instead I like to think of that birthday card in which Bryce thanked me for getting him swings.

He thinks I'm funny!