I’m really not sure I can express how thankful I am for my family.
And of course for Baguette, who we feared might never be—but is.
Bio Girl has a post about the father-daughter weekend her dad requested for his birthday. It sounds like a great weekend–and a wonderful birthday gift.
I did something similar, although it wasn’t for a birthday. Mr. Sandwich and I dated long-distance for our entire dating relationship–he lived in L.A., and I lived in New Jersey. When we got married, we figured that people were going to have to travel no matter where we held the ceremony.
So we held it in San Antonio, where my dad lived. My dad was our wedding planner (much of his career was spent in project management, and he spent 30 years in the Army, so this meant that he had a budget, a schedule, a goal, and protocol–it was a natural fit). He and I have very similar taste, so it was easy for me to delegate, well, pretty much everything, particularly since I was halfway across the country.
But there’s always more to do, and I had to move across the country anyhow, so I gave notice at work for a date one month prior to the wedding and moved home.
The movers emptied my New Jersey apartment, and I spent a day cleaning. The next day, I went to the airport and picked up my dad. The two of us spent several days (3 or 4, maybe?) on a father-daughter road trip, driving back to San Antonio. While our overall goal was to cover miles, we also took one “detour” each day–such as when we passed through Maryland and swung by the house that he and my mom had bought after I was born.
Honestly, I don’t remember the route we took south of Richmond–did we take I-85 because it was more direct, or I-95 because we were less likely to encounter snow? (Although it did snow at one point in Virginia and/or North Carolina.) What I do remember is the moment when my father, a lifelong objector to any kind of “potty humor,” suddenly started singing “The Diarrhea Song.” It felt like a crazy, tacit acknowledgement of my adult status–he could now be silly and crass without having to worry about the example he might be setting. At other points we recounted family stories and debated political issues. (Clearly, we have range.)
Once back in San Antonio, we began the final days of wedding planning in earnest–fittings, printing the programs for the church and the table cards for the reception, ordering the custom dark chocolate wedding favors (the chocolatier was another retired Army officer, so let’s all agree to lay down our stereotypes and go home), and more. My dad pointed out that it would be very easy to get overwhelmed by planning, so every day we rented a movie that had nothing to do with weddings. It was a great month, and I’m so glad that I spent it that way. Even then, I said, “I’m never going to look back and say, ‘Wow, I really wish I’d worked a few more weeks.’”
So when Bio Girl says, “You never outgrow your parents,” I know exactly what she means. And I totally agree.
Meagan Francis of The Happiest Mom writes today about helping fathers become involved as parents.
I always knew that being an involved dad would be natural for Mr. Sandwich. It’s such an obvious extension of who he is and how we approach our relationship.
He, apparently, had more qualms. He says that when he found out that we were expecting a girl, he got a little nervous–he wasn’t sure what to do with a girl, whereas he felt that he did have some sense of how to be a father to a boy, having once been a boy himself.
Until the moment she was born. He saw her for the first time, and describes the suddenness of his reaction as “like being punched.” That was when, he says, “I learned what ‘love at first sight’ means.”
After they did the most immediate tests and measurements, we got a Golden Hour–an hour in which (aside from one nurse) we were alone in the room with our new daughter. I unwrapped her and held her against my skin, under a warm blanket. It was the most beautiful, astonishing thing I had ever felt. I could have stayed that way the whole hour.
But I knew that I wanted Mr. Sandwich to have that, too. So after a while, I said, “You have to do this.” He said, “What do I do?” I answered, “Take off your shirt, hold her, and put the blankets over both of you.” He said, “I don’t know how to hold her.” And I said, “Yes, you do.”
I was right. He did. The two of them snuggled for the rest of the hour while I looked at how beautiful they were together.
They’re still beautiful together. They always will be.
