Post Father's Day Post

(I wonder if I titled last Father's Day post that?  No, I did not, I put a 'The' before it.)

I usually try to write about a holiday or celebration after the fact, mostly because I am using this forum to help make memories for the boys, and, uh... me.

Here's the thing, I've got a couple of cute, fun, adorable crafts from the boys I want to show you, but, first I want to try to explain something.  I am a Midwesterner and we don't really like to speak on emotions 'round these parts, but - I think Father's Day is a very difficult day for a lot of men.

It's not just emotional for current fathers, watching with memories so close to our minds, mixing our childhoods with our children's, watching our kids through our father's eyes.

It's not just hard for an at-home-dad like me - to whom the whole notion seems absurd when you realize, as you look at Mother's Day cards, that they'd be more appropriate for you - who must suffer the media stereotyping and bumbling dads mythology so sometimes searingly, heartbreakingly thrust at us.

It's not just painful to men who aren't dads, aren't even considering it, or men who had deadbeat dads or no dads at all, or for men who are still forming, all wondering what is happening, why this journey?

I am struggling with the words today.  In a way that's a good thing, it means I am struggling with an idea, with an emotion, with myself.

Simply put:  Father's Day expects to much of us.  It's a needy, Hallmark holiday, unnecessary and difficult.  Do we celebrate our own fathering or reflect on our fathers?  It's sort of hard to do both, the first so joyful and sacred, the second melancholy and inviolable.

For me, I absorb the joy of my own fathering every day, it's easy and I make a point of noticing their smiles and freckles and breaks and burgeoning dreams at every opportunity.  I notice them daily.  Also, I remember my own father in a very deep way, I rely on his foundation for my own faith and, hopefully, integrity, in a way that forgoes time, not in some heady philosophical way, it just exists in an out-of-time plane along with hopes and dreams and demons and sadness.

For me - and I mean this - if the above is true, and I think it is for a lot of men, every day is Father's Day.

                   ______________________________________________


So, I got breakfast in bed, toast and fruit and eggs even, and I got a funny card from Marci, and a couple of homemade cards from the boys:

 This one is from Zack, I just love the "hammer in a heart" logo, and I do "do much work."  I love you, too, Zacky.

Nick had a little more time but he made a fatal design error; he wanted a pop-up guy inside and he wanted a cutout for the cover.  Mom rescued him with a piece of a ziplock baggie to line the heart.  His poem, heartfelt and accurate: "You love Meat,/ Meat loves you,/ you love me, too!"  ..love me, too, meat too.  Ha!  Great stuff.  I love you, too Nick.  (All of this he created with his right hand and arm in a cast up past his elbow.)

I am not sure where he got this little photo of me, I haven't been to a Renaissance Fair in a number of years.

It's definitely me.

I got these nifty coupons good for stuff.  I'm gonna use the "giting money" one soon.  I am not sure who's going to cut the grass if I use that one.  One is good for "loving" and one simply for "LOVe".  I think I'll keep those for now

So, that's how I feel about the whole thing and what I got.  Thanks for coming around.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"I ripped it out so we wouldn't hurt it."

... huh?

 It's boy logic, we can't fathom their depths ...