I'd like to start off by telling a little story.
I know this is my first entry and all, and I should be
telling you who I am and what this blog is. And I'll get to all that stuff, I
promise. But I didn't want to launch right into all that right off the bat. I'd
like to just ease into it, let it come up organically. So, first, a story.
I've never been a dog person, and I'm still not, though now
that I have one I can at least understand where dog people are coming from.
Late last winter my wife finally wore me down – though at the time she was
still my girlfriend… no, fiancée – and not long after we were riding the ferry
back from Martha's Vineyard with Ruby, our beloved dachshund/eevee mix sitting
timid between our feet.
Now, Ruby loves us both, but she is definitely a momma's
girl. Soon I learned why the phrase "following around like a puppy
dog" has entered our common lexicon. My wife is a nurse, and she works
nights, and every morning when Ruby and I go downstairs she immediately assumes
her regular post atop the couch with her nose pressed up against the window,
watching for her car to pull into the driveway.
On the other hand, our puppy is a bit of a coward –
especially about loud noises – and when she hears a firework, or a car alarm,
she comes running to my office to hide behind my chair, shaking like a leaf. At
first this baffled me. Kaite is her favorite. Shouldn't she go to her? But I
came to realize that while she looked to Kaite for fun she looked to me for
protection. She felt safe with me.
And that surprised me. I'd done nothing to incite that
feeling. It was just how she felt. And no one – human, dog, or otherwise – had
ever looked to timid, insecure ME for protection before. But I came to grow
comfortable in the role, even relish it, and I'm glad to have gone through that realization when I did.
Because in about seven weeks, give or take, there will be a
new and tiny person on the planet who's going to look to me the same way, and I
want to be ready.
My name is Jeff, and once my son is born there will be so
many thoughts, experiences, and moments that I'll want to share and remember. And
what better way to do that than a blog? Thanks to the magic of the internet I
can share this journey with the world in real time as it unfolds, and then
later when my son is 27 or 36 or 45 or graduating high school or getting
married or having kids of his own I can pull up these old pages and remember
how I felt in the first few years of his life.
Before those years begin, though, I'll use this space to
talk about my thoughts on becoming a father, my hopes and fears for the future,
lessons I hope to impart, and anything else that comes to mind, I guess.
For now, let me leave you with another little story. The one
of how my son came to be.
Thirteen years ago –almost to the day, actually – when I was
still in college and trying to make friends, I joined probably the worst horror
movie club that has ever existed in the history of either the horror movie
genre or clubs. We met every week in the dorm room of a kinda creepy guy who
looked like Al Borland from Home Improvement and watched plotless violence from
around the world.
I don't know why I stayed in as long as I did, but thank god
I did, because one night a trio of freshman girls walked in late and in the
darkness began MST300ing whatever garbage Al had subjected us to that night.
One of them, the taller one who spoke in an unmistakably thick Boston accent,
stood out. She spoke a little louder, wisecracked a little more humorously. It
was love at first snark.
It wasn't until later, over ice cream at the parlour in the
basement of that dorm room, that I actually saw her face. And the rest, as they
say, is history… or at least it would have been if my angsty college self had
ever mustered the nerve to ask her out. Instead I loved her silently from up
close for the rest of my college years, and we drifted apart.
At least, until three years ago, when our mutual friend
Caitlin – by the way, one of the other two freshmen I met that long-ago night –
got married. She and I reconnected over gnocchi at the Olive Garden and she not
only invited me to her wedding, but she sat me at the same table as Kaite,
quite intentionally. And two years later, she presided at our wedding.
I'd like to end (for real this time) with a segment that I
hope to end every entry with: Jeff's Dad Jokes. Everyone who knows me knows
that I've been ready for fatherhood basically my whole life in one specific
way. I tell Dad Jokes. I always have. I inherited my sense of humor from my
father, who himself was a father for as long as I've known him, and he told
some of the daddest jokes I've ever heard.
I'll start off with my favorite joke of all time. A simple
one, and it's short, because you're probably ready to stop reading by now.
Q: What's brown and sticky?
A: A stick!
Hahaha! Man, I miss the days before I'd already told that
joke to everyone I know.
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