“Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.”
~ Author Unknown
DAD
Dad is undoubtedly one of my favorite words in the world. The simple sound can make me feel like a superhero on the best of days, and is a balm to the wounds of my worst.
Three letters and only two unique, D-A-D, yet could I ever tire of their palindromic sound?
Dad…
I remember the second I felt that first spark of being a dad. It started in the tip of my finger before rolling up and around my shoulders, then in a straight slide down the back of my spine. Mia was barely two minutes born, still screaming from the bright light of her brand new universe.
Dad…
Of course she couldn’t cry dad, but she may as well have. Mia ceased her weeping the instant all five of the tiny digits of her left hand curled around my pointer and I wiggled my hand back and forth in perfect time to her calming breath.
I knew I was a dad from the moment Daisy and I saw that little pink line divide the white window, but I felt like a dad the second my flesh connected with a brand new Mia.
Dad…
I adjusted to my title quickly, even used it myself many times throughout each day. I had never referred to myself in third person before I was a dad, but every day after, I stared into my daughter’s eyes long enough to tell her, “Daddy Loves you.”
For the next year, Sean was an endangered syllable I heard only outside the house, and even then it sounded somewhat foreign.
DAD…
Six months into my life as a father, I started to hear the sound in song. Dad, Dad-dad-da-D dad, dada, Dad. Each Dad rang through my ears and thickened the deep pride I already felt.
Mia was nearing two when we discovered my role as a new daddy was about to double.
Max was on his way.
DAD!
I adored being a dad and was eager enough to add another. Though my minutes alone were increasingly scarce and Mia was at the age where the word Dad was regularly rat-a-tat-tatted around like shells from an Uzi, I was in love with (nearly) every second.
DAD!
Max was born on Father’s Day, Daisy that year giving me a gift she has yet to equal. Max seemed to say “Dad” just days after his delivery, and by our first Christmas as a foursome, the word dad was bouncing from the walls like echos at the bottom of an empty canyon.
Still I did not mind.
DAD!!!
By the time Max was ambling around the house in a half waddle – half walk, he was trumpeting the word DAD as though the most important sound in the entire world. ”dad-deeeee, DaD- Deeeee, DAD-DEEEEE.” It was certainly loud, and perhaps a bit annoying, but I found it near impossible to bury a smile.
We opened our preschool and had to immediately fend off possessive affection from the other tiny toddlers intent on calling me dad.
DAD!!!!!!
“He’s MY DAD!” Max would declare, willing to share his father, so long as he alone could lay claim to the title. Our wee students would leave and the short hours spent after five o’clock were dedicated to my own two reclaiming their Dad-Dee.
They would chant the word over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Still I did not mind.
DAD!!!!!!!!!
Now, as I try to canvas the white page with the black of my keystrokes I can hear the metronomic chorus carried through the house, each pulse deepening the deafening beat of my never ending daddy duties.
Tasks that should take ten minutes now take twenty.
To do’s that should have neat black lines severing their middle now mock me with incompletion.
I would love to say each day is still a treasure, and that the power of the word DAD could never dim, but if I said that today I would be lying. Today was one of those days frosted with an incessant need for my undying attention.
Today was filled with, “DAD, Max is using potty talk,” “DAD, Mia’s playing with my garbage truck,” “DAD, Max is antagonizing me,” and, “DAD, Mia has too many hands on me.”
One day, I am quite sure I’ll…
DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sigh. I’ve gotta go. I’m being paged.
Writer Dad
Sean Platt is always a dad, but he also ghostwrites and is an occasional potty training expert.
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