My Favorite Things

I love being a father. This is coming from a guy who used to fear the very prospect of fatherhood with a morbid dread that is usually reserved for man-eating sharks and dancing badly in public (click on the photo below to view the video).

Indeed, one of the biggest surprises of my life thus far has been the ridiculous amounts of delight with which I’ve been inundated ever since I held our firstborn in my hands.

All of my fears regarding fatherhood had to do with my paternal responsibilities and the utterly awful ways in which I was convinced I would carry them out. And considering that our oldest is only two-and-a-half years old, there’s still a very good chance that I would irreversibly mess up this being-a-dad thing.

But all of those fears seem trivial compared to the remarkable joys of being a father to two incredible little girls of whom I am totally undeserving. I get choked up every night whenever I pray with my two-year-old and I marvel out loud at the stupendous gift of being able to love and raise and teach such beautiful children with my beautiful, talented, and astounding wife, who may or may not be the editor of this blog.

This is very important for me because I naturally gravitate to dwelling on the things I don’t have and the things I can’t do. It is ludicrously easy for me to forget how much I love being a dad and grumble and whine about how our children inconvenience us, complicate our lives, and prevent us from enjoying the finer things in life. But the sobering truth is that my wife & I weren’t exactly livin’ la vida loca before our two girls rudely interrupted our thrill-a-minute existence. In reality, when I compare my pre-children life with my post-children life, there is absolutely no denying that my days are richer, my marriage is happier, my view of God is grander, and my grasp of the gospel is deeper because of my two little girls.

So, in an effort to keep a firm grasp of reality and to prevent my heart from loitering in the land of what-ifs, I decided to create a top-ten list of my favorite things about fatherhood. If you are a parent, I encourage you to make a list of your own and post it somewhere conspicuous as a reminder of the beautiful gift of parenting, especially on those days when you are sorely tempted to put your kids up for adoption. And if you’re willing, please share them with me!

Without further ado, here are my top ten—in no particular order—favorite things about being a father:

1. The exquisitely spontaneous, heart-meltingly sincere, unforced and genuine ear-to-ear smiles on the faces of my two daughters when they see me at the airport after our longest separation
2. The way our two-year-old goose-steps through the house with her limbs flailing wildly while shouting “Banzai!” (or something random like that) at the top of her lungs
3. The way that our nine-month-old lights up the room with her brilliant, disarming smile and forces the most curmudgeonly curmudgeon to smile along with her
4. The way that the small, squishy, warm hand of my nine-month-old rests on my shoulder as she finally dozes off in my arms after much struggling and crying
5. The unrestrained, unfeigned, and slightly manic laughter of our two-year-old as she and I hurl snowballs at each other
6. The remarkable, mystical feeling of teamwork and union with my wife whenever we tandem-read a book for one of our daughters
7. Watching my two-year-old dance with absolute zero self-consciousness (click on the photo to view the video)
   
   
8. The hilarious things that my two-year-old says:
• “Let me out and give me some breakfast!” (Banging on the door after we had just tucked her in for the night.)
•  “Cheese salad!” (Pointing to the homemade mac & cheese)
• “I’m demanding.” (When she’s being demanding)
• “I’m difficult.” (When she’s being difficult)
• “Daddy, can I have your milk? From your nipples?” (Sitting on my lap and gazing intently at my chest. Very. Awkward.)
• “He’s scream-singing, and I like it!” (Referring to Pavarotti)
9. Teaching my two-year-old how to ride a bike and watching her grow more & more fearless each time
10. One word: “Daddy!”