Super Mom(s)...

Sometimes I don't feel like much of a Dad, not when Maggie and her Mom are so inseparable. The truth is that a lot of days I can't muster the post-work strength to rip that little girl from her mother's arms. Maybe I sneak Zoey away just to give Mom something of a breather, but I rarely walk in the door and assume infant duties. I say hello. I coo. I hold her for a moment or six, but I don't grab the reins. It's something of a sore spot for me. I don't like being bad at something. This, I occasionally feel, I'm bad at. June, however, is the champion of all champions...patient, confident, selfless. I regularly need some space...need a chance to gather my thoughts, piece together some sort of perspective...I'm not winning any medals for Fatherhood, not in these first few weeks. June sleeps on the couch, so that she and Maggie won't wake me when they rustle about all through the night. June doesn't want me driving all over Southwestern Ontario all day with three hours of sleep. Who does that sort of thing for their husband? She does. Tonight I told her that I wanted her to come back to bed, and she just smiled. Maybe she will...my bet is that she doesn't. Sure, I get up in the middle of the night to find Zoey's blankets on the floor, to ease her through a nightmare, but I've even slept through some of that, and then June picks up the slack. I suspect that my wife is best and brightest of her breed, and trust me when I tell you that I have a good sample size to choose from...a cadre of incredible Moms that I know, from our friend Mel to our own Mothers...I've seen some Moms, and June looms large. She certainly stands in no one's shadow. Tonight she fell asleep with Maggie watching "Bagger Vance," waiting for the Tiger game...the Tiger game that I wanted to watch. She was waiting to call me up from the basement to let me know that it was on. Instead, she just settled in with our fragile, newly formed daughter, and unknowingly posed for a new favorite photograph while sleeping. I don't know what to say to all of the Moms I know who recognize something of themselves in June's incredible approach to all of this, and whose husbands, sadly, took no note. I don't have words. I know what it is that you've done, and I know how lucky I am to watch June do the same. That Mom crap is hard, and you earn every ounce of sleep that you are able to cuddle up with and coax out of your child. I don't feel as though I'm always earning mine.