Celebrating Dad

Some men take to fatherhood like a duck to water. My baby-daddy was not quite like that. Between being  extremely squeamish in real-life blood situations, and scared to death of carrying anything smaller than 5kg, I was pretty safe to deduce, even before our babies arrived, that he was not going to be all that hands on.

Enter Beautiful Boy/Big Brother, June 2012. The circumstances surrounding his birth resulted in an emergency c-section, and The Husband's first parental experience involved fighting back tears and helplessness as his brand new baby painfully got his lungs flushed out. (I never realised or acknowledged the long term effect this would have on him until Beautiful Boy 2.0 was born three years later, and I heard The Husband anxiously ask, "why aren't you going to take him to have his lungs flushed?". It wasn't necessarily, but it had been his fear all along. As was the possibility of a repeat emergency delivery.)

The Husband didn't change a single nappy on our 3.4kg baby that first month. But triumphantly marked his first a few weeks later with a Mufasa-esque trophy hold of our baby - with his nappy on back to front. While I did most of the baby related activities, there was still plenty of daddy love, cuddles and devotion, even during bronchiolitis at five weeks, and pneumonia 11 months later.

Second time around, apart from that lingering fear from before, The Husband was a lot more confident. While he still refused to change our even smaller baby, he eagerly did Kangaroo Care from the second Beautiful Boy 2.0 was placed into his arms, and effortlessly took Big Brother through his first separation from me while I was in hospital, and again when I could not stay with him while was in hospital later that year.

It's been three years since then, and The Husband wins MVP in our family, hands down. He has shown me over and over that the value of a partner is not in doing the baby things only. Sometimes (as continuous nursing from one baby to the next has shown us), babies want or need (often, only) their mamas, and that's where The Husband has come out tops. He is able to - and does - make dinner, bath kids, run errands and restore peace. And no one cleans a house like this man!

So this Fathers Day, with another on the way soon, let me just say again: there isn't anyone I would rather do this parenting gig with. We are completely different and perfectly complementary, and together, are the best thing for these precious gifts we have the awesome responsibility and privilege of raising. I don't say it enough, but I am so grateful for, blessed by, and proud of you Husband!
Happy Fathers' Day!

 

This post was written using aliases as it was entered in a blogger Fathers' Day competition.

If you've been reading CUWTK long enough though, you'll have no trouble following the post.