Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there but especially to both my Dad and BA!  My Dad was a great dad.  He was so involved in my upbringing, and he has been a great example to BA of how to raise a girl.  My dad was Mr. Athletic in high school and college and he would have loved to have a boy.  He'd have been little league coach for every sports team and he'd have been outside playing catch with the boy every day.  But my dad had two girls - two girly-girls who were more interested in picking flowers, singing songs, and dancing than sports.  Even still, he volunteered to help coach my 4th grade softball team, despite the fact that I was terrible and mostly played right field (that's where they put the kids who are afraid of the ball).  He even volunteered to coach my 5th grade soccer team even though he'd never played a day of soccer in his life.  My team needed a coach and no other parents were stepping up.  So my dad volunteered to be head coach, went to the library, got a book on soccer, and coached the team.  And in high school, he was assistant coach of my tennis team and would be out there on the high school courts hitting balls with the me and the other students every afternoon in the spring.  But my dad's involvement didn't stop with sports.  When we were little, he'd play the guitar and sing songs with us, he let us play "hair-design" on him, he got roles in the community theater plays we were in so the whole family could be in the play together, he would surprise us at school and eat lunch with us.  He prepared family breakfast every Saturday.  I have vivid memories of waking up on Saturday mornings to the smell of homemade buttermilk pancakes and the sound of Dad's music (either New Age or Irish tunes, depending on what phase he was currently in) coming from downstairs.  He was also the only Dad chaperone on a week-long bus trip to Washington D.C. for my 4th grade class.  All the other chaperone's were Mom's.  He was always there, always playing with us, and that's what makes him so great.  I have a great Dad. 

For BA's first unofficial Father's Day, I decided to take the five favorite things he lists in his profile on this blog (sleep, chocolate, Chick-fil-A, FSU football, and classical music) and make a gift for each one. 

There's a C.D. of Mozart to represent the classical music we will be playing all day.
We have a Chick-fil-A card, promising to take him to Chick-fil-A for lunch.
We have brownies for chocolate.
And we have flannel pajama pants that I secretly sewed while BA was away last week in Dallas, to represent sleep; also in FSU colors for FSU football. 

BA is going to be a great Dad, I know it.  He told me not to do anything for him because the Peanut isn't born yet so he doesn't feel like a father yet.  But I said, you're already buying things for her and assembling all her furniture - that's what Dad's do and you'll be doing it for the next 20 years!  You're a father.