LJ Archive - 11/27/05: To My Number 1

My Dearest Little Bethany,

If you’re reading this, it means that somewhere along the way, we actually did a few things right and thus you know how to read. More importantly by confluence, it also means the website hosting this document has defied logical and probable economic trends and continues to host it for free, or (and much more likely), your sensible mother had the foresight to see this the next day and print it, stuff it in a box with all your other infantile knicknackery, and that I did not at some point subsequently burn the house down, thus turning said priceless keepsakes into so much ash and ember. Or something like that.

However you come across it, the occasion for my writing is this: you turned one year old today!

Lemme get the usual baby-book stuff out of the way first: almost all of your Maternal relatives were here – the important ones at least like Grandma Ona and Daddy Jim, and Stacy and Laura with Maddy and Allie. Allie was disappointed because I’d put you down for a nap when they arrived, but you needed it and they got to see you soon enough. Erna came in from Texas and picked up Aunt Betsy as well as the great Sidebottom Matriarch, Aunt Duval. There were others too, all here just for you on your big "Number One" day.

You had your very own little cake shaped like a number “1” that sorta looked like a foot without toes, while the adults divvied an oversized lemony cake superbly decorated to match the party favors and stationary. I never knew an infant could be so dainty, but you were positively classy: picking and nibbling at your cake as the guest of honor at a black tie affair might (but see, your mom and I don’t have enough of the Old Money to register for those, and if we did I’d probably blow it on a car instead, you know). You received all the mandatory dosages of textile cuteness (which by this time of your perusal exist only in photos, or perhaps in the bottom of someone else’s closet by way of the Salvation Army store), and some toys that thankfully did not drive me to the point of insanity – a dancing Elmo doll with freakishly large feet, a talking lion of measurable cuteness, and a ginormous “megablock” playcenter you can use to sort and stack and make a mess of mommy’s er, I mean your Fisher Price Peek-a-Block collection.

Happily, I became an advertisement cliché and videotaped all of this so that you wouldn’t have to take my word for it. So if I get off my lazy arse and fix the blasted computer, you’ll be able to see it when you’re old enough to care… which might be now, I imagine!

So let’s get to my point… yes, a good idea, that - I’d love to but I don’t know where to begin.

You’ve taught me so much in this past year.

You’ve taught me that no matter how much your mom and I (or even just I) might long to bemoan and complain and rabble about our lot in life, that we have no reason to do so, because our own parents did the same thing with us filling the rugrat role 30 years ago. Of course, they were even younger, and we're still here. The economy was just as bad, world affairs were uncertain as they always are, and the future looked bleak (although for an entirely different set of reasons). You have blessed us with a reason to have hope and if we don’t quash your innocence too soon, we may yet be the better for it.

You’ve taught me that in spite (or is it because?) of my contrarian protestations, I really can be a father and a dad (while I work on learning the differences between the two). I’ve realized that the lauded and glorified “child-free” movement really is all about falsely rationalized selfishness. I don’t miss the TV shows, I survive without my evening siestas, can enjoy my road trips and solo respites even more as they come, and the toys in the basement and driveway, and clubs and true friends will still be there if they're really worth it. Better yet, someday we can share the experiences together, and I’ll hand you the keys to a classic 1988 T-Bird on your 16th birthday. It’s not all about me and it never should have been.

You’ve taught me that the urge to dance really is natural, blackmail wedding videos be damned. I won’t promise to ever get into singalong songs, although your mom is quite good at them.

You’ve taught me something that my parents never could: that they were (usually) right, more often than not (dang it all). Yes, it’s true… and someday, hopefully, maybe, you'll say the same about me and mom, and I’m not saying that for our own justification.

You’ve taught me how to hold on to hope, because when I hear you giggle and see you smile I forget about the uncertainty in life. Walking past the hallway just in time to see you bounding out of the room in your first clumsy 1-2-3 footsteps was a priceless reminder that we have to start somewhere, even if it means starting over sometimes, especially after we fall.

You gave me so many memories to cherish: picking you up in your glow worm swaddling - tiny as a football, warm as a space heater. Your basinet babbles were the sweetest lullaby I’ve ever been privileged to hear, and mom’s soft serenades just broke my heart with joy. Your soft soothing smiles just melt the workday away. You were mesmerized by the fishtank upstairs, the model railroad downstairs, and everything that goes by the car windows. Laughing at my Strong Bad and Beavis & Butthead impressions made bothering to do them all worthwhile (and, I might add, proved you were mine beyond a doubt). I got you so addicted to spinning office chairs I thought the authorities would surely come – and yet you’re a natural thrillseeker (must be from me blasting around the country roads with you before you were born).

Yeah, you’re a night owl and a fitful sleeper, having evicted me from a queen-size bed, but you’re just so curious! Diving in to help me fix computers and work on trains and fool around with all the other flotsam I rip apart around here. I see so much of me in you it’s really scary – and so a warning about your deviousness: I know where that comes from and I wasn’t born yesterday!

Your stunning beauty is all your mom's fault though. You can thank her for that. You should. You wouldn't believe the compliments you get... it would almost make moving to California worthwhile.

And here (and here) we are… you’re still growing and learning and teaching us just the same. Has it been a year? Seems like yesterday I was running punch-drunk to the car on a cold November Monday morning, making sure the infant seat fit, escorting you and mommy and trying to fit you and her and the gear and clothes and fancy hospital bow all in there.

You learned to sit up so fast, and then rolled, and crawled, and stood and finally walked.

Now you do Kramer impressions in the doorway, and spin in circles and run.

I guess it really has been a year. I better get started on that T-Bird soon, then.

You and mommy mean the world to me and I’d be devoid of purpose without you. I hope I'll always be here, and while I can’t guarantee things will always or ever be easy I will do whatever it takes to provide to you the best opportunities I can afford. I promise to teach you and guide you, but not make things too easy. You’re going to have to earn your way and you’re not going to be spoiled - your bloodline heritage will see to that - but you deserve all the blessings the world has to offer.

In you I see a spark and a level of purity I couldn’t have imagined an infant being capable of a year ago (I was always scared of infants until you came along).

I promise to keep that spark ignited, to the best of my human ability.

Happy Birthday, my little girl. Whatever else happens from here, know that your daddy truly loves you.