Trying to figure this whole parenting thing out.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Week 8 Day 1: We are in love

Stacy had a snow day today so Gavin and I weren't flying solo (or flying duo, I guess).

He was extra resistant to bottles today. I can't blame him since it was obvious Stacy was home. But last night we'd put two bottles of breast milk from the freezer into the fridge and that stuff isn't good for more than a day after it's been frozen. It's liquid gold. So I gave him the bottles while Stacy pumped in the other room and I think it was pretty clear to Gavin he was getting shafted.

Stacy is the one who usually puts him to bed at night and she said that before he goes to bed she tells him the worst thing and the best thing that happened that day. Today the best thing for me was dancing around in the kitchen with Gavin and Stacy to "Papa Don't Preach." Granted, it's kind of an ironic song when you think about it, but Gavin loved every minute of it. As did I.

On the new Sade album there's a song called "Babyfather" that has a refrain that goes, "Daddy's love comes with a lifetime guarantee." It gets stuck in my head a lot but I always hear it as, "Daddy's don't come with a lifetime guarantee."

I guess it makes sense that I would hear it this way, first because I have a son with no daddy, and second because the last two books I read included really shitty fathers, one who was abusive in every meaning of the word and another who was distant and unresponsive and ultimately gave his son cancer (X-rays. It's a long story. The book is Stitches by David Small. Really, really excellent. I highly recommend it). In the book with the abusive father the son kills his parents and his sister with a baseball bat. It's a true story. It's one of the books my dad gave me for Christmas. Thanks, Dad, for making Christmas last all year!

Stacy and I tell a little story about how Gavin was sitting on a cloud looking down trying to choose parents and he saw us and said, "Two mommies. Yes." And off he went to become our son.

Writing "sitting on a cloud" it makes it sound like I'm talking about Heaven or something. I think it has its origins more in Cupid. But Stacy and I were both raised Christian, though different flavors of it, so we've appropriated some of the iconography. Neither one of us identifies as Christians any more. Man, I hope Stacy's grandma never reads this. I think that's the only person who would care. She prays for us all the time, but not in a "please turn my granddaughter straight" kind of way. She's 95 years old and she's very accepting of us. Man you should have seen her when she finally got to meet Gavin. We took him down to Florida at Christmas because that's where Stacy's mom and Grandma and aunt live. She was smitten with him from the start. I am really glad that Gavin got to meet his great grandma Ina, even if he won't remember it. We have pictures to show him later.

Shit. Now I have the song "Castle On A Cloud" stuck in my head and I only know the line that includes the title. So that's on repeat. I don't even like that song. I'm trying to will "Papa Don't Preach" back: "We are in love, so please..."

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