I Guess I'm a Dad

I love to peek in and look at Gehrig while he sleeps. Nothing new there -- parents have been doing that forever and feeling, I'm certain, exactly what I feel. He's so long when he's stretched out asleep -- he's growing up. Can't really call him a baby anymore, (they're not babies long, are they?). Except that now I understand what my mom has meant for so long when she says, "You'll always be my baby." All along she's meant it much more literally that I had realized.

He's growing so gradually that I find myself musing about what it must be like (what it will be like -- I still have to remind myself that it's all really happening here) for a parent to look at an adult child and see the same person they've known all along. The same but different. The change is so gradual, so constant, so unrelenting.

And inevitably, because I'm such a sap, I start thinking about what a mess I'll be at his wedding. (This is why it's good that we're not having girls -- how much worse would I be?) Or graduation. And I mention to Ruthie, (who's aware that I'm a sap,) that the graduation song, "Pomp and Circumstance" I think it's called, always kind of gets me anyway. Don't know why, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out. So much so that we've got a door-chime on display at work that plays the song, (not the whole thing -- that'd be annoying) and which I avoid just because. Graduation will be hard.

And the Best Wife Ever says to me, "Look on the bright side baby, maybe he won't graduate."

And I love her.