Happy Father’s Day To Me

Today is my first ever Father’s Day.

It’s 2pm and so far I’ve spent the day washing dishes, installing an extension cord so it’s bolted to the side of our kitchen table (we had been running out of electric plugs at that area), emptied the trash bins and replaced the linings, ordered KFC and ordered delivery of drinking water (2 pieces of 2 piece original with rice, small mashed potatoes and coleslaw, 3 5 gallon water bottles respectively).

I woke up around 6am and as usual walked Ace out to get him some sun, came back when he got fussy and there wasn’t enough sun anyway, baked a couple of franks for breakfast, went out to walk him about when the sun was up, came back and had breakfast (rice, eggs and aforementioned franks), then delivered him to the sleepy arms of his mommy who had to feed him a record 4 times the previous night.

Related to that, it’s my opinion that the hero here is no less than Jill, who has been ‘enjoying’ the joys of new parenthood about ten times as worse as I have. Ace, who is a month old yesterday by the way, had been sleeping as long as 4 hours the first two or three weeks. But since the other day he has been demanding to be fed nearly every hour and I don’t think she has been able to sleep longer than 2.5 hours at the most.

I of course am occasionally oblivious to this in the evenings, but the longest I think I’ve slept myself is at least 4 hours, waking up to his occasional crying or just me wanting to check on both of them. Maybe its built in in every human being, but a baby’s cry quite wakes one up whatever time of night. There’s a certain alarmist aspect about it that just wipes all sense of sleep away and forces your attention.

I was hoping to make this a more cohesive post, but I just had lunch and my thoughts are kind of everywhere at the moment so I doubt that’s going to happen. I wanted to be able to talk about what I think about parenting per se, about how I occasionally feel that what we really are after all that’s said and done are guardians, caretakers if you will, of our children whom we are hoping to grow into productive members of society at the very least.

Sure at the base of it all there is our need to continue the human race, and above that I’m sure is the need to continue one’s family and add to it, but after that really what else is there other than this desire to hopefully make sure that he effect somewhat of a positive impact on the oncoming generation, that by some measure of education and proper upbringing he can make a satisfying life for himself and just by doing so, contribute to the good of man in any way, big or small (lacking the ability to be specific I went for ‘the good of man’ there. Hope that suffices).

Any and all thoughts of legacy or the passing on of ideals, family heritage or whatever is particularly lost on me, having had no peg if you will or any sense of that myself growing up. I am not particularly keen on wanting him to become athletic, geeky or especially learned. I have no desire to want him to play in the nba or become a movie star and if it so happens he does become athletic, good looking or can sing, dance and act it would all be by chance. I don’t even particularly care what religion he decides to pursue, if any. If there’s anything I have learned having lived this far in my life, it is that goodness of the heart has no bearing whatsoever on what religion a person practices, how fervently he practices it or if he practices any at all.

All I really want I find myself thinking, is that he not become an asshole. And I don’t necessarily mean the next Hitler or Bin Laden. I just mean not be the kind of guy who spends time thinking of hateful comments on YouTube, or who talks on his phone aloud in a movie theater, or who takes pride in finding ways to cut the line at the grocery and says ‘doesn’t everybody?’ to justify it.

All I want is that he be a good boy and in due time become a good man. A healthy man who values the opportunity to do whatever it is he chooses to pursue. Education, the ability to know how to go about things, dealings with people, decision making and learning to deal with adversity all come to a person sooner or later, and in good time one will learn how to deal with things. During which I hope to have been able to be there so as to soften the blows of the difficult periods somewhat. These I find myself hoping.

So there it is, those are the things I’ve been doing my first Father’s Day. It’s 236pm and we’ll be going to a family thing later in the afternoon when it’s not so hot. A lady I know around the condo greeted me Happy Father’s Day this morning while I was carrying Ace around, and that was the first time I remembered it which in turn got me thinking about today.

Ace is just a happy little camper in the mornings. Walking him around outside is the best part of my day.

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