I became a father on a Thursday night. The following Sunday was Father’s Day.  I’d had all of 2.5 days practice, but I met the criteria for being a Father, so I received my first work of art from the boys: stamped footprints.  

Early Sunday morning, the nurse brought my son back to his mother and I from the nursery.  Determined to master diapering before we went home, I took the first dirty of the day under the watchful, sympathetic eye of my weary bride.  

I gathered all of the accoutrements as instructed and stripped down the appropriate parts in the bassinet/rolling cabinet thing the nurses had him in. Standing at the south end of this baby cage, I locked the rolling wheels and locked in my gaze on my boy: my bride made that.  She made him and him made me a father. Wow.    

As an aside, I realized that nothing about making and delivering babies is as I learned in school.  There was no discussion of the tears involved each month we weren’t pregnant or that ‘trying’ wasn’t as fun as it sounded.  No one told me about the details of delivery, but I’m not sure I would have listened if they had.  No one told me about making circumcision tents or of the extent to which my bride would have to heal from the ordeal.  And no one told me about meconium.  

I held my 5 pound son’s feet in my left hand as I attempted to scrape this tar from his delicates.  As I reached to grab another wipe, I heard a loud pop. In sheer panic, I ducked my 6’3” frame below the bassinet.  My son, feet well above his face, prompted by the cool breeze from the in-room air conditioner, began to pee.  The water ricocheted off my hand and hit him in the face. 

He was now crying from the cold air and wet face.

My bride was crying from the pain of a recently sewn abdomen as she laughed uncontrollably.  

I stood dumbstruck, son in hand wondering what had happened in the last 2.5 seconds.  

My son’s fart sounded like a gunshot as the meconium gave way.  

After diapering my son and resuming my position on the couch/bed, I stared at my wife in disbelief.  “Welcome to fatherhood,” she chuckled.  

This was my introduction to Father’s Day and fatherhood: tenderness and chaos, knowing and unknowing, simple tasks made entirely unpredictable. 

Each Father’s Day, we retell the story of the ‘toot heard ‘round the world’ and my wife reflexively reaches for her abdomen in anticipation of laughing cramps.  I’ve come to laugh at the story now too.

And each Father’s Day I receive texts and calls from friends and family.  Father’s Day means something different to each of us.  Each text I received this year was from a woman who’s father had died, left or was, by most standards, a bad father.  Each woman was well into adult years and many had quality husbands and fantastic kids.  And yet, there’s something about a father…

I won’t pretend to know why I received the texts I did from the ladies I did, yet I do wonder.  I qualify as a father and time will tell of the quality of my fatherhood, yet I represent a version of fatherhood to some.  I hope it’s a version based on love and caring and courage and strength.  And laughter.