arcēology

I promised Amy I would make a guest blog post if she ever reached a certain number of pageviews in one day. At the time, she was getting about -1 pageviews a day and I felt safe. I knew better though, because when Amy gets some sort of goal in her head, she tirelessly works to that end. If only I could have inspired such action in the “Spring Cleaning” campaign I pitched last weekend, which consisted of me spending 6 hours in the heat resurrecting our landscaping nightmare and Amy updating her Facebook status to, “Amy is acting like she’s cleaning the kitchen to appease Kyle.” Yup, that’s the mother of my child.

Speaking of that child, I have been instructed to make this post something about what it’s like being a father – so here’s my best shot at that.

I’ll admit that in the beginning, I saw Owen as just another responsibility. But not in a bad way. In fact, it was a very good responsibility that I loved very much, but I’m not sure I can say I really felt like I was his father, and he was my son. I had a job, a wife, a house payment, a church and a child. I even told my friend Nathan that it’s awesome, but it’s not the bond everyone touted it to be. We had talked about it before. In elementary, everyone talked about junior high and how hard/cool it was. In junior high the teachers threatened that “in high school they’re doing things 10 times this hard and you better have this base or you won’t succeed.” High school threatened long, impossible college courses and sleepless nights studying or working on a paper.

And it was all crap. Junior high was easy, I cheated my way through high school, and I had some all-nighters in college, but it had nothing to do with a paper. So, we came to the conclusion together: tack this parent/child bond onto the list of over-hyped situations. It was really cool having a son and knowing that someday he’ll quarterback the Dallas Cowboys, but deep, formerly undiscovered bond? Nope.

I was wrong. (Having that in print should make Amy happy with this blog no matter how it turns out.)

Now, he looks me in the eyes. He knows – he really knows I’m his dad. I can make him smile and he can make me smile. My heart leaps out of my chest when we lock eyes for about 10 seconds and then he smirks sheepishly and looks down. Oh, there’s a bond alright and for once – FOR ONCE – expectations and hype have been exceeded.

I need to enjoy these days because soon enough I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn into the seemingly unattached disciplinarian. And at some point in the near future, Owen will be dad’s partner in “Spring Cleaning” and if dad finds anything like the kind of crap his mom pulled on Facebook, the belt’s coming off.