Babies and Miles

I am not “that person” who would show up at work, day after day, after winning the lottery. And no, I don’t have that wish for the one, super-special expensive and gratuitous purchase like M.C. Hammer gold bathroom fixtures or a Michael Jackson amusement park. All I want is to invest everything I have into being a good, mostly-normal Dad and that means without compromising my time, by being away from them.

Having kids when you’re 39 means that you’re mostly grown-up by the time that they show up. I have this imaginary conversation with my daughter Lily about how I wish I had her earlier so we’d have more years together, but I know that there are no guarantees, and I tell her, still in my imaginary voice, that “this is the only path that led me to you” and I wouldn’t ever risk having it any other way. So, even if I could afford it with my zillions of lottery winnings, I’d never invest it in a secret army of scientists to build me a time machine to right any wrong turn or try to make up for lost time.

So, since the last time that I wrote anything personal, I’ve had the privilege of being a much better-together birth dad for my daughter, Natalie Violet, born March 25, 2010. Without the distractions of the anxiety of being a new parent, especially a first-time-parent, I could slow things down and take beautiful photographs in my mind of the first moment I saw her. I know that this will go fast.