June 17, 2012
Today, as we were feting McIrish over lunch, I was telling the kids the story of the gymnast who stuck the landing on a broken ankle. As a parent, I have very mixed feelings on that story; I can’t say that I’d let my kid compete with broken bones, especially when she or he’d be flipping through the air at great rates of speed. But as you all know, the kid did it. She stuck the landing and won the gold medal, and her coach carried her to the medal ceremony, and it was quite a moment.
And, me being me, I cried as I was telling the story. Same old same old, right? Dearest Son’s eyes began rolling, and Princess Daughter’s lips twitched, and even McIrish, who’s used to my happy tears, looked overly patient and slightly jaded as he patted my hand…not at the story, just at my waterworks.
See, he’s only cried once in happiness, to the best of my knowledge. And that was the day he became a daddy, when he held our daughter in his arms and saw her face, and perhaps the miracle of her birth and the magnitude of fatherhood really hit him, and he said his first words to her: “I love you.”
I guess if you’re only going to cry once because you’re happy, that’s a pretty great time to do it.
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