It was Father's Day today. I got two seasons worth of Magnum, P. I. on DVD, a pair of shorts, and a Synchro DAD t-shirt, the last, specifically from my daughter, who spent the weekend helping the coaches at a Synchronized Swimming meet.
My daughter turns 13 this week. We only have her for a few more years before she starts on her own life. My son isn't far behind.
The gifts I got for Father's Day today were nice, but they weren't meaningful. The little girl laughed for the first time at the Pooh ornament in Reston, VA in 1993. The pre-teen telling me that I'm the best dad in the whole world, though I doubted it at the time. The sweet, smart, wonderful girl who hugs me and kisses me and tells me that she loves me before she goes to bed at night. The one who still screeches like a five-year-old when I tickle her.
The little boy whose first diaper change at home came just a little too late to avoid dirty sheets. The one who climbed the boxes in the living room before he was one when we'd moved to Florida in 1998. The little kid who took about a year to run the bases at Devil Rays fan fest. The one who told me at Cub Scout day camp that the B on my Red Sox cap stood for BOO!
I remember the morning both my kids were born. Laura was gestational diabetic, so we had induced labor. I remember seeing Jane McDonald in her minivan as we drove down the Dulles Toll Road the morning of June 21, 1993. And I remember dropping Jenny off at her friend's house before dawn the morning of October 10, 1997.
I remember cutting Jenny's umbilical cord and having Dan's footprint stamped on my arm. I remember Jenny being angry that she got a little brother instead of a sister...until she went to the hospital and held him.
These things and a million more memories are worth far more than the money we'd have if we didn't have any kids. They are the best Father's Day present ever.
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