Fathers Day Post

I am a few days late I guess. I kind of let the day cruise by. My excuse is sleep deprivation in general compounded with the day before when we had driven to Delta in the morning for Ryan's family's reunion and had gotten back late. I think I forgot to even say the words "Happy Fathers Day" to him.

He's always told me he didn't really know if he wanted kids because he didn't know if he'd be a good father. I never believed that, not coming from the guy who has always made the eyes of about any little kid he ever encounters light up.

You aren't fooling any one Mister, and you never have, at least not anyone who has seen the faces of your nieces and nephew when they see "Rye Rye", or anyone has seen the gusto with which they throw themselves in to your arms. The way you catch them, and lift them, and look at them, and laugh gives you away. It's obvious how much you care for them. Noone without the capacity to be a great daddy could even fake that much love.

Even when she was a drooling baby, you talked to my Elsa like it mattered what you said to her, and you eagerly waited for her to understand you. As soon as she could understand your words, you began to teach her. You are the fellow who has made Elsa giggle since she was six months old, who taught her to do a somersault when she was three, who taught her to shoot a straw wrapper across a room, and who got her to eat her vegetables well before you had any real authority to do so. And now you patiently get her ready for spelling tests, and now she gets 105%. And you are as happy and as proud when she is victorious as she is. And you sit with me through school programs and dance recitals and it was you who spent four hours of a Saturday taking pictures of little ballerinas to give to her birthday party guests.

And you have been standing guard over Addey since she was a spec. You leaped into action every time she needed you to. You haven't fooled her. She already knows you. Her face already beams for you in a special way like it does for no one else. She knows who snuggles her to sleep almost every night, and who comes through the door at the end of the day and finds her before he does anything else.

Although some people see you as a new father, I know the father in you has been alive for a long time; you have been quietly keeping that little boy with you too.

Ryan, you are amazing. If I weren't so stuck on you, I would stick with you anyway because my little girls have the best father (and step-father) ever. If you don't believe me, look: