Hand picked perfect fathers

It's nearing midnight and I'm just getting around to this (and posting just after midnight because I suck) - not because I feel like I have to or am obligated to post something on Father's Day, but because I'm surrounded by some pretty amazing dads and I want them to know how loved they are.

Around Mother's Day I was all "oh my fucking Lord I just want a few hours to myself and please oh please can we just have one night where the kids aren't crawling into bed with us? Please?"

And, you know what? I deserve that.

But, so does he.

And neither one of us got it for our Hallmark holidays this year.

There's a reason we didn't get those few hours for ourselves and a bed with just one another in it ... it's because we're parents, and parents don't get those things readily or served on a silver platter. At least not the ones I know personally.

Sure we had every intention of going to church this morning and spending time with our church family, bonding over during the strawberry shortcake during coffee hour ... until we looked at the clock and saw it was already 9:30 a.m. and neither of us had showered.

It was a lazy-not-lazy day after a hectic Friday and Saturday - dance recital and birthday celebration and company and tears and crying and praying we can just get through bedtime without an argument - and today we opted for calm (or as calm as we do around here).

Because I love my husband so much, I made him drive me and the girls to a local farm so I could buy strawberries ($30 for a flat just for Father's Day? I'm cheap and know the way to a man's heart is with home canned preserves). And he was awesome and sat in the car with a sleeping Charlie while Josie and I ran into Wegmans and spent way more of his money than I'd planned. Like, I really didn't know organic whole vanilla bean was going to be $8 a tube, which has two whole beans in it.

 Then because I REALLY love my husband and think he's an amazing daddy, we went to the Raymour & Flanigan Clearance Center ... and I bought him a king size memory foam mattress set. Because I'm awesome.

Giggle all you want, I welcome it, but these are the things that I hope will make his Father's Day good this year. We'd already been discussing the new bed. I'd wanted that vanilla bean for like a week because there was a new jam recipe I *needed* to try. It all worked out that those are the things we did today.

In all seriousness, my husband is one of those guys who, when we met, I questioned the ability he might have when it came time to create little people. Well, not the creating part, but everything that came after that.

It turns out, I picked the perfect dad for my children by waiting for the perfect man for me. He's attentive and loving. He's willing to drop everything at work if I need him at home because of an "emergency." He tells his little girls every single day that he loves them. He's been a model for our children of what kind of person they will hopefully choose to co-parent their children someday.

You see, when we first met, he had never held a baby, diapers were foreign territory, bottles and breastfeeding and pacifiers and burp rags and little tiny socks were all things other people did. Then we got married and discussed more in depth the idea of having kids. Then that plus sign appeared ... and two more after that just to make sure it was really real and that man turned into a father. He geeked out on daddy books and carseat research and spent hours deciding which was the best mattress for our baby to sleep on.

Finding out you're going to be a father does something to a man.

A man who is 100 percent invested in his children was all I ever wanted; I got that. And I'll admit there are times I'm a little jealous of all the love he showers on them, but I have to try to take a step back and remember, I had him for seven years before Josephine came along. I had him all to myself and loved him every single minute even when we were apart during our long-distance years, and I feel so grateful for the fact our children get the man he is now ... not the boy he was when we first met and were in those formative years of our relationship.

My children are spoiled by their father, but he's just as spoiled by them. And what better way to be spoiled than with love? That's the only way I was spoiled as a child, and I'll never regret getting all those moments with my dad, because he's amazing and gave me a great guide for what to look for when I went searching for my soul mate.