Fatherhood.

Well Kasper, you've made me reconsider some things.

I'd come to closure on my own relationship with my father many years ago. The facts were the facts. He wasn't good with the facts. I'd come to accept that he could just disappear because in his mind he never really left us. I came to think this disconnect from reality was understandable (to a point) and while I could not necessarily forgive it, I accepted it.

One of the most important things in life is the ability to forgive. We all make mistakes at some point. We're human. We're flawed. Regardless of how wonderful and perfect we want to be, the truth is simple... we're not.

But now, I see things through changed eyes...

You're a little more than four months old at this point. I love you more than I realized possible.

With this love though, it makes me question my own father. I know for a fact, I wouldn't be able to just leave you behind, regardless of what was going on in my own head. I miss you after only being away twelve hours for a work day... to suddenly disappear and have little or no real contact would not be something I'd even consider. If there was a reason for it ever to happen, i'd do my best to make it as short as possible and to get back to you.

My father did not.

Now of course, there were mitigating factors. There was alcohol. There was mental damage.

I think though, that the version of my dad that left when I was 11... isn't that far different from myself in certain regards. In others, we couldn't be more far apart.

The version of him that's left today is but a shadow. Barely worth my time and most definitely not worth yours.

I swear on my soul, that will never be the relationship between you and I. I could be trapped on the moon and I would find a way to come back to you as soon as I possibly could.

You are my son. You are, as you should be, the most important thing in my world. I will always try to do my best for you. This I promise.

Like I said above, giving forgiveness and moving forward is one of the most important things we are able to do. So while I don't hold any ill will against my father anymore for his failures... I find that the understanding I used to have of how and why it all happened is not the same. Already you've taught me new things. I look forward to more and more.

The First Father's Day

Today is Father's Day.

My first with you in the world.

Father's Day is an interesting one. I hadn't been close to my own father for many many years. So because of that, the day itself didn't mean much.

I'd always get my mother a card or chocolates or whatever on Mother's Day, but Father's Day??? Yeah, whatever.

I mean I'd always had respect for it, for the great men that I had for examples growing up. My Grandfather, My uncles. So, in the back of my head I would always say a word of thanks to them... The day though, went on like any other.

Now you exist.

Now things are different.

Suddenly I had to come to the realization that this day has changed. It matters. I have a son. I am a father.

It's quite the thing to wrap your head around.

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be your Dad. How proud of you I am and you're only 10 weeks old. Now I find myself talking about poop or talking about your sleeping patterns. Talking about the milestones as you achieve them.

Talking about things that a brief 10 weeks ago, I had no idea about.

The feeling of cuddling with my little man after a long day of work. Dancing around the room to calm you down. Even just walking down the street with you in the wrap on my chest.

These are things I cherish.

Things that not that long ago, I hadn't experienced.

I barely remember how things were without you.

I consider myself a very lucky man to be your Dad. I hope that you will feel the same way when the time comes.

Family is important.

The bond between you and I is everything.





You, me & Great Grandpa Joe June 17 2012

Forty One Days

Right now you are sleeping on my chest. You have been for about an hour and a half. Your Mom is out in the kitchen making dinner.
It's just time for me and you.
There isn't a thing in the world I would rather be doing. I could just lay here and watch you for hours. Listen to your breathing... The occasional stretch... A noise every now and again...
This is pretty much perfection my little man.
It's so surreal to watch you grow day by day. We see you every day so we don't always see the changes... It's just when we notice the blanket that used to hold you tight doesn't quite wrap around you the same anymore. Little outfits you never even had the chance to wear.
We can't remember what it was like without you. Everything is about you now. We wouldn't want it any other way. I understand now when a parent says their child is the best thing they have done in their lifetime. I feel that about you.
Things change so quickly. Days pass far quicker than we'd like. I know that today you're sleeping on my chest... and then I'll blink and we'll be clapping as you graduate.
I'm so looking forward to seeing you grow. At the same time, I have to say... I like you exactly like this.

Four Days

You're four days old today.

As these things are counted.

In a way it's still all surreal. The amazing fact that you were inside your mother for all that time. All that build up. All that waiting. When we could just feel your kicks through her stomach.

Now you're here in our arms.

You've owned our hearts from the second you entered our world.

Things I would never have considered cute... Suddenly they are. There's something about someone pooping on your for the first time. With any other person, I'd be kind of offended by it. With you, it's completely ok. It happened in the first hour you were out by the way.

There's even something damn cute about watching a four day old fart. The expression on your face. The concentration... the build up... and suddenly the toot. It's adorable.

Things I had initially worried about. Cleaning diapers non-stop. Needing sleep. These things suddenly aren't issues.

The first two nights, you didn't much want to sleep between 1am & 3:30am. I held you in my arms and danced around the room calming you until I was almost ready to fall down. Mom got her sleep. She needed it... That's important.

Last night you let us sleep all night. In fact that's kind of your M.O. right now. You eat, you sleep, you poop and repeat.

You make little warthog noises in your sleep. Little snorts. Again, they are adorable.

You've met both your Grandmothers. You met your Aunt Jess. Tomorrow Uncle Mike flies in from NY.

You're surrounded by love and good people. That's important. These are the things that are important to us and we will make the foundation of your life.

We love you madly. More than we knew we could. It's only been four days.

Just wait til four years... four decades... it'll all be the same.

Kasper arrives

Yesterday you joined us in the world.

It's interesting. Up until it happens you don't understand, you can't understand. You're just dealing with the reality of M's stomach getting bigger. Feeling the kicks and movements from inside. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Then the day comes. People tell you it all changes. On a certain level, you understand that they're right. You don't really get it though until that moment. That moment when it does actually all change.

You can't fool me, I saw you when you came out.

It's true. That moment when you came out... everything changed. I didn't realize just how much it would until it did. I didn't know how I'd react until it did. Suddenly, you popped out of the water, out of the sac, and my eyes erupted with tears. My body shook. We heard you. You had your first breath, your first cry. Something clicked. Suddenly I knew that myself or your mother weren't the most important things anymore. The most important thing was you.

It was a long long day.

It started about 3am. Your Mom didn't want to wake me. She tried texting me to wake me up. Didn't work.

We woke up Grandma and called the doula. She arrived by 4am and we were getting ready to go.

It was a long day. It was a hard day. It was such a rewarding day.

I'll tell you. When I watched everything that your Mom went through yesteday, I had to thank my own Mom (your Grandma) for doing the same for me many many years ago.

Your Mom spent most of the day in the birthing tub. Waiting for you to decide to come out. We had the unfortunate event of suddenly having roofers the last two days fixing the roof. Bang bang bang all day long.

It wasn't until the second they left that things started to move forward. Move forward they certainly did. I wanted to reach out, to rub her back, to help her in any way I could... but at the same time, I was concerned that if I even touched her, I'd lose my hand. In the very end, I got into the tub with her. She held my arms, pushed hard against me with every surge... and then out you popped.

You did the Superman pose. Hand over your head. Pushing out into the world.

Didn't exactly make it easy on your Mom, but she's amazing and she pulled through. Then, as I said above... there was that moment.

I swear to you that I will always be there for you. For both of us, you are the most important thing in our world. Everyone is thrilled to meet you. We're going to lay low for a couple weeks. Enjoy you all for ourselves. Then we'll start letting the outside world back in.

I'll tell you as well. Grandma Lobster was amazing. I'm so glad we had her here. I don't know what we would have done without her. She's thrilled to have another grandson.

We're thrilled to have you.

PS: Everyone loves your name

Dreams

I dreamt about you last night.

I don't remember much about it today, as is the way with dreams. I do remember the absolute elation and joy as I held you in my arms. Feelings unlike anything I have ever felt... and it was just a dream.

We're two days past your due date now. The due date is pretty much the only day that it can be guaranteed you will not arrive in the world. Personally, as I've said all along, I expect you to be an April Fool's baby. No real reason for that. We like to laugh, we'll teach you to too... April Fool's is a perfect day to start.

I'm looking forward to meeting you. In the next few days, I will. It is a crazy thought.

Time has flashed by so quickly. It doesn't seem that long ago we started the process of bringing you into the world.

Just give me a little time before your marriage or graduation ok?

Navn

So we've been trying to name you. It's not an easy thing.

Of course we're not sure if you're a boy or a girl yet. It doesn't matter to us really, all we want is a healthy wonderful baby. We're sure you'll qualify to that. We are pretty sure you're a boy at this point... but we don't know for sure.

My only original qualification on your name was that if you were a boy, we'd make your middle name Norwegian, we'd name you after my great uncle Ledvin. Someone who taught me the value of our family name. Someone who changed my life, as I know you will. Obviously that doesn't work as a first name in this day and age, but I hope that you can take pride in it as something that is extremely important to me.

So we had that.

Your mother thought that we should make your first name something modern and Norwegian as well. Something that you could use here but that wouldn't be out of place in Norway. As you will come to learn, Norway is very important to both of us.

So we decided to go with that.

Now let me tell you, Norwegian names are not easy. They're either very Norwegian and wouldn't work over here at all. Something like say Sverre. Wouldn't work very well in North America. Otherwise they're not Norwegian enough, biblical names that we weren't really looking for.

So we looked and we looked and it ended up coming down to two.

We were going to pick either Soren or Espen, probably making the final choice when you come out into the world to meet us.

Before too long, Soren took the top spot. We both liked it... Espen fell to second, definite second. So we decided to check with the family in Norway.

This is how we found out that Soren is kind of a soft swear in Norway. There's a phrase that likens it to 'shoot' or 'darn'. So, we had to blank that one. Off the list. We'd gone a month or so with that as our top pick too.

So with that off the list, we switched our number one to Espen. It never really quite sat right with either of us, but we didn't really have any reason as to why... That was our number one pick for probably two more months. Until your mother was doing a little more research and found that it was a Danish variation of Asbjorn...

That's my father's name.

There's no chance whatsoever we were going to name you after my father...

So we're back to stage one.

This is a little bit of a problem as you're due to appear in our world in the next week or so. It would be much easier if you could just pipe up and tell us what you want to be named. It's such a major decision that will shape part of who you come to be. It's a lot of pressure.

Recently I've really come to like Kasper. Your mother says we're not allowed to duplicate initials, you can't have a J name or a B name. A K name would work around that. We can shorten it to Kaz, I like that too.

The problem with that one being that there's a Norwegian folk tale about a trio of robbers named Kaspar, Jesper & Jonathan. On a certain level it works (no, we won't name another child Jesper). Your mother didn't like the concept of it being about a trio of robbers though. The trick to the story is that eventually the robbers save the town and become respected citizens. You become the fire chief.

We can all respect a Fire Chief.

So at the moment, my favorite name is still Kasper. Your mother has come around to it too. It was originally on some of the lists of names we had come up with, so it's floated around since we first started thinking about it.

We're not going to lock it in for sure yet. We're going to keep looking. See if there's anything we come up with that we like better. We'll even wait for you to come out and tell us if you suit Kasper or not. I'm guessing you probably don't want to stick with Blueberry. Also, that would contradict your mother's no duplicate initials rule... So that's out anyways.

I think Kasper works. I feel far more solidly for some reason with that than I ever did about Soren or Espen. It was 42nd most popular name to give a baby last year after many years of absence due to the folk tale. So it's not too far out there... and it's not a top ten overdone name.

Then again, it could all be for naught. You could be a girl. We'll see at some point in the next seven days. We're excited.

Let me introduce you...

So there's under three weeks now until you come out into our world.

Two weeks and two days until the due date, give or take two weeks of course. So, it really could be any day. I've always had the feeling you're going to be an April Fool's baby. No real reason to that, but that would make you a week late.

I suppose it's time to introduce you to your mother.

Of course, there is the fact that you've been inside her for almost 38 weeks now. You know her in a different way than I do. I'll tell you my vision of her.

Your mother is one of the most fascinating wonderful people I have ever known. I'll admit, I think you're pretty darn lucky to have her as your mother. I know that I'm pretty darn lucky to have her as my wife.

She'll stand up for you, she'll do everything in her power to protect you, she'll strive to make the world a better place for you.
She's incredibly intelligent... compassionate and giving... and I love seeing her smile, looking into her eyes.

She's a beautiful person and a great example of what we can be if we have morals and are not afraid to stand up for what we believe to be right.
I'm already wondering what pieces of her you're going to pick up. Will you have those eyes? Will you get her intelligence? Will you have her smile?
I know already I'll also love looking into your eyes.

I'm not going to tell you life is easy. It's not. Your mother has had a tough run of it at certain points. It's made her stronger... wiser. She'll do anything to make sure those things don't happen to you. Of course, as will I.

She's incredibly forgiving. So keep that in mind the first time you spill something on the couch or set the carpet on fire. She might be mad at first, but she'll get over it pretty quick. She's good like that.
She believes in the best in people. She has surrounded herself with a great crowd in doing that. Her excitement is infectious. It's hard not to get caught up in it.

She's inquisitive. She needs to know how things work and why. It's not enough just to know that they do work... she needs to know more.
She's an optimist. I am too. We both think that the cup is half full, even when that's a hard thing to believe.

She's made me better.

She has her flaws... we all do. But if the average person was more like her, the world you're about to come out into would be a much much better place.

I love her completely, with all my heart. Of course, there is room in that heart for you too... We both have big hearts.

And though she's going to miss it... She's looking forward to having you out in the world. She's looking forward to getting her belly back. We're looking forward to a new adventure with you along for the ride.


I'd say we're pretty lucky, you and I.

Now and then

We spent last weekend doing the "Birthing Within" class... baby class. Final proof (if I needed any) that everything is real and life is changing. It was an interesting weekend. A great weekend. Us and six other couples, people our age (or so) going through the same experiences. The excitement among both the soon to be Moms and Dads palpible in the air.

We had a lot of fun. We learned some good stuff. Hopefully it makes bringing you into the world an easier thing.

The area we did it in was interesting for me. Brought up a lot of memories of a younger me and a day I consider to be part of my own 'rebirth'. The area currently known as Crossroads, Broadway & Cambie St in Vancouver. Interesting juxtaposition between thinking about your birth and an area which is the same in a way for me.

I know I haven't really had a chance to talk about my sickness yet. I'm sure that will come. But there was a day near the end of it... a day after being cooped up in a hospital room for nearly five weeks... a day after fighting so hard for my life...

A day when they finally let me go.

I'd been locked in a room for what seemed like eternity. A hospital room. Able to see the beauty of the world through the window, but not able to breathe it in myself. No fresh air. No sunlight. So many things that we take for granted, I was left without.

Needless to say, after the experience of this... I was aching to feel again. Live again.

As a test run, they let me go. By myself. For the first time in all that time. Up until then, there'd always been a nurse, family member, friend with me... and never outside.

I'll always remember the feeling of the air hitting my weak body. The rays of the sun touching me. I ended up walking through this area that 16 years later we would be taking a class learning about you in. It was glorious.

I was sick but recovering. I was pale. I was weak. I definitely didn't fit in with the average joe walking down Broadway. A Broadway very different from what it is today, which again I'm sure will be much different when you experience it.

I spent probably an hour out there. Just wandering down the sidewalk. Relishing the air... the sun... the feeling of being by myself... in public... being alive.

Watching the people around me. People who looked at me like I was a freak. Looking back, I'm sure I looked like one, as I've rarely smiled as wide and been as happy as I was that day.

It was likely the first real day of my new life. I was not the same person I had been just a few months before... before all of this had happened. Before I had to fight so hard. Maybe it was the first day that I fully realized how different I now was. Maybe it was the first day of my rebirth.

In my mind I still remember every bit of that day. I remember the feeling of the air, the sound of the traffic, the fresh autumn smell. In my mind, I can transport myself back there in a second.

So it was that I found it a little ironic that all these years later, I was learning about your birth in the same spot. It's interesting that the Broadway/Cambie area is overall such a small part of Vancouver and yet has had such an effect on my life.

You're kicking hard in your Mom's stomach now. I love feeling it. I tell you stories... as it says 'the gurgle burp urp in your ear'. You react when I talk to you through your mother's skin. We're down to just a little over two months until you'll be outside with us.

I hope I can teach you to see the world like I do. I hope you can teach me better ways to see it myself. You are going to have challenges in this life, I wouldn't for a second think you to be lucky enough to have it any other way. Then again, the challenges will make you stronger. That's what they did for me.

Never forget that regardless how it goes, we are lucky to live this life. Our world, our universe is a beautiful place. I will enjoy every second of living it with you.