I awoke Sunday morning with the feeling I was being watched.
Still foggy with sleep, I looked to my left and saw the gleaming blue eyes of my three-month-old son Grayson staring at me. My wife, Amanda, had him propped up on her pillow in anticipation of me waking up to my first Father’s Day as an honest-to-goodness daddy.
“Hey dude,” I said, and he replied with a happy gurgling sound and an ear-to-ear grin.
I couldn’t imagine a better way to start that day — or any day, really.
Amanda takes these kind of occasions seriously, so she had a gift bag of goodies ready for me, which included new golf gloves, some shaving supplies and a framed picture of Grayson. The gift opening was followed up by a special breakfast of my choice.
I suggested the custom-order breakfast thing become a daily occurrence, but was met with the 'don't push it' look.
Since the baby came along, I often find myself trying to ‘mentally record’ special little moments onto the hard-drive of my brain so that I can pull up these old memories from the archives and enjoy them again at a later date.
I was playing with Grayson while Amanda made breakfast, and it struck me that this was one of those moments worth archiving.
The concept of Father’s Day got a bit more real when my own dad beat me to the punch by calling to wish me a happy Father’s Day, which brought us both a big laugh.
I had big plans for cleaning out the garage on Sunday, but ended up spending the majority of the day playing with Grayson on the couch, making silly noises and tickling his belly to try and induce one of those big, soul-warming smiles.
(I should mention that I was also given the day off diaper duty, which is always nice).
I tried my best to soak it all in, to savour this once-in-a-lifetime moment with my young family.
But something tells me I won’t really, truly appreciate the significance of my first Father’s Day for at least a couple of decades.
