I Am Not A Father

Every year I get the same thing from various people and while I do understand and appreciate the sentiment, I find it a bit insulting.  As always, it's my personal opinion and to each their own.

A mother is a female and a father is a male.  To me, that is as far as the distinction goes.  To say a mother is special because she carried the child diminishes the role of females who have adopted children or who have willingly taken on the responsibility of a child not theirs.  To say a birth mother is more special than an adoptive mother or step mother is insulting at best.  And where does that leave the father?  Is a man less of a father because he does not share any genetic material with the child?

Keeping Afloat

I can't say I'm the most positive person around, my wife likes calling me a debbie downer.  It's funny because, despite her accusation, I make great efforts to stay positive and not dwell on myself.  But right now I need to vent a little.  Maybe a l not.  I'm only human, I have feelings and emotions and pains.

For the past two or three weeks... maybe a month, I've not been well and the only thing keeping me going forward is knowing it could be worse.  And it looks like life is on a mission to make that as painfully obvious as possible right now.  I have two friends that have lost husbands, one with a daughter the same age as Nicholas.  One friend who was in the hospital for almost a week due to strong contractions and, basically, premature labour.  She's only 26 weeks along and very young and scared.  Someone who miscarried at 30 weeks due to shitty doctors (not in the US, no possibility for suing).  I could go on with what is going on around me and I do feel for these people and I know full well their situations are far worse than mine.

But I still have mine.

The Grocery Store

I have been wanting to write this post for a while, put down in words what a typical outing is like with Nicholas.  It just never happens because it never seems quite right.  And then I saw this video.  So let me start with our experience.

This is what a typical trip to the grocery store looks like:

We walk in, the flower display is on the immediate right.  Yes, Nicholas, those are very pretty flowers.  No, we cannot buy any flowers.  Please let go of the flowers.  I walk away in hopes that he will follow.  Come on, Nicholas, stay with me.  He runs to the berries.  You can have one kind of berry.  You want raspberries?  But look, there aren't any raspberries.  You can have blueberries, strawberries, or black berries.  Are you sure you don't want any?  I grab blueberries anyway, he'll ask for them as soon as we're home.  Nicholas, please stop spinning.  Stay close to the cart.  No running Nicholas, please stay close.  Can you help me?  Get some cheese for me, the one in the purple bag.  The purple bag, Nicholas.  Close the door nicely.  Nicely... Nicholas, please don't slam any doors!  Come one Nicholas, lets go get milk.  Stop spinning, please stop spinning.  Watch where you're going, Nicholas.  Please look in the same direction your body is moving.  Keep your hands to yourself, you're going to knock something over.  Please stop spinning.  Nicholas, no running!  No we're not getting cake today.  Because we have some at home.  No running!  Stay next to the cart, here hold the box of sandwich bags.  Oh good, peace, we're almost done.  Nicholas, please don't open that.  Here, can you put it in the cart?  Thank you for helping!  Please stop spinning.  Look!  You hit someone!  Can you apologise for hitting them?  See, this is why I say no spinning.  Keep up Nicholas....