Jim over at Sweet Juniper has created one of those wonderful posts that somehow manages to encapsulate exactly what being a Dad is. A funny, sweet, sad, frustrating, and intimately poignant snapshot of a day in the life of one Dad.
I can especially relate to the moment he shares with his daughter who, after throwing up on his laptop battling a norovirus, reacts like I could imagine mine doing. Just when you think you know what you are being called on to do as a parent (in this case, make your kid comfortable while they battle a bug), parenthood throws you a small curveball and you realize that you are being called upon to do something else entirely.
I go into my daughter’s room to kiss her goodnight and find her sweating under blankets. Her best friend has lately found other kids he’d rather play with at school, and in her sleepy state that’s the first thing on her mind. Through her dream haze she says to me, “It’s good that he wouldn’t play with me today; I might have made him sick.” Here I’ve been worried I upset her with my reaction to what happened, but heavier things weigh on her tiny heart.
“I just want you to know that I love you, and that my computer isn’t broken after all.”
“Okay, Pops.”
“And don’t you worry about him. He doesn’t know how much fun he’s missing.”
A few lines later, musing about his angry reaction to losing his laptop, he says;
But how could you be mad at her? You might as well be mad at the wind.
Later on, an event happens that puts losing your laptop to a kid vomiting on it into perspective, and presents another reality of what parents are called upon to deal with, in this case it is Jim’s Mother-in-Law. Here’s hoping the follow-up post has some good news with regards to that situation.
This is wonderful writing, and a post that every soon to be Dad should read.
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