Often
times I still find it hard to believe that I am a dad. Neyla has been with us now for almost
16 months now, and despite the fact that she monopolizes so much of Janae's and
my time, the concept that I am her father astounds me. There's no doubt that there are times
that Neyla absolutely drives Janae and I up a wall and frustrates us to no end,
but I have never felt the way I do about a tiny person (or a large one for that
matter). Each time she runs to me
with her arms wide-open a new "greatest moment of my life"
occurs. To read her a book or feed
her or to see her and Janae interact fills my heart full of love and
admiration.
Janae
is a fantastically amazing mother.
I could not have imagined just how maternal and loving she would be with
Neyla, but when Ney was born it was like something just kicked in inside of
Janae. When I first met Janae
(maybe some of you remember this Janae), she thought that the two dumbest
things that you could ever do were to get married and have kids. She said it made no sense and that
people only did those things for self-centered reasons. She was convinced she would do
neither. I told her that I thought
both were admirable and that I hoped someday I would do both. Luckily for me, somewhere along the
path of life she changed her mind.
On
one of our first dates, after years of not seeing each other, Janae had told me
she had changed. She said that she
thinks that she wants kids now and would like to be married. She thought that if she didn't have
kids she would be missing out on a part of life that she was meant to take part
in. The only problem was that she
wasn't sure she would ever find a man that she'd like to share this experience
with. Within 6 weeks she had
identified that man and it was I, thankfully. ;-)
When
we found out that Janae was pregnant we were so happy, but we didn't know
why. We were not planning on
having a baby we just left it up to fate.
Shortly thereafter we found out it would be a girl and I was secretly
panicking while Janae was celebrating.
I didn't know the first thing about being a father, let alone to a
girl. I knew that most boys were
pure evil and that one day one would ask out my daughter and this future moment
panicked me. I wanted to time
travel, find this boy and teach him a lesson nice and early, either that or
early register Neyla in a nunnery.
These
worries no longer exist within my silly head. Mostly because Janae is so amazing with her and I know for
whatever silliness Neyla gets from me, it will be balanced and nullified by her
mother's beauty, grace and love.
Even when Janae was a young tough feminista I knew that she was one of
the most unique and beautiful people I had ever met. My favorite thing about Neyla is that she is half
Janae. That is the best thing
about having a child, that they are half you and half the person you love the
most in the world.
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