I didn't make him a Father's Day card, instead I decided to share my sentiments with the world...or the 12 people reading this. :)
We do, however, have a spa appointment for a couple's massage since Mac is celebrating with Bryce...I excitedly thought it was a well-kept secret, but Sean admitted Friday afternoon that he knew what I had planned...apparently it's impossible for me to be sneaky, I unknowingly give it away almost every time...it can be as simple as scratching the back of my left knee and discussing the weather on a Tuesday and he can somehow surmise exactly what I'm up to...frustrating, but fascinating how he can figure me out.
Anyways, to the subject at hand...Happy Father's Day Sean.
You see, he gets the step-dad shaft...all the work and none of the glory. Although he lovingly gets called Seany, the D-word belongs to Bryce as it rightfully should. So it's days like this where it's bittersweet...especially this year...since Sean got to be a Dad...somebody's DAD for only six short days before it was taken away. Today was a day we were both looking forward to celebrating...but now it has brought bittersweet to a whole new level.
I don't think I have the right words to aptly describe Sean's fathering skills...just tears of immense gratitude & love which are falling from my face right now thinking about everything. This whole "Dad" thing has mostly been a foreign concept to me...personally growing up it was an altogether disaster on most levels. Therefore, witnessing Sean's parenting has been my only experience with anything resembling astounding fatherhood...and it has been astounding fatherhood from the first minute I put little 14-month-old McIntosh into Sean's arms...
Mac actually weighed about 14 pounds at the time and had just started sitting up on his own. It was the night before Thanksgiving...we had JUST started dating and he was coming home with me for the holiday. Mac was the first baby Sean had ever held...and I kid-you-not the next night, after Thanksgiving dinner, Sean was playing endlessly, changing his diapers and putting him to sleep. Instant fatherhood.
It was the beginning of what has been years of selfless care for Mac...whether it was picking him up and holding him during our wedding ceremony, taking him to therapy, waking him up every morning and helping him get ready, doing homework every afternoon, teaching him how to scrub a toilet, hit a baseball, or make cookies...and playing...playing, playing, and more playing. Sean does it all...without question...and when Bryce is around he shrinks away out of respect...just a quiet presence in the background of Mac's life...so much so that even Bryce himself has said how much he admires Sean.
If I were truly honest I would share the fact that I will always be scared to have another child...being maternal is not always my specialty nor is all the sacrifice that can accompany parenthood. However one of the driving forces of my desire to complete our family is, simply...I want to put a child into Sean's arms...I want to see some little wondrous person think that he is the best Dad in the whole wide world...even though he's earned the title a million times over I want it to be official. I want to raise a family with him, because he makes me a better mother...he makes me a better person altogether.
Sean has taught me the power that lies within fatherhood...something I previously discounted because I was never embraced by it. He demonstrates love in ways that I didn't know existed. I'm endlessly grateful for the blessing it will be in Mac's life to have learned, by Sean's example, what it is to be a good man.
Thank you, Sean for every tiny little thing you do...for how hard you work and how much you love. Mac and I wouldn't be a complete little family without you and I can't wait to grow a new little Griffin person who gets to call you "Dad". Happy Father's Day. I love you to the moon and back...
