Fathers Day this year is very bittersweet for me. On one hand, I want to celebrate the wonderful man I’m married to, who is an even better father than he is husband. He deserves many, many days of recognition for the joy and love he has for Dylan, but I’ll try to cram it all in on Sunday.

On the other hand, this day serves as a harsh reminder of the huge, gaping hole in my heart. See, I lost my father last year, suddenly and viciously to a very one-sided battle with pancreatic cancer. Its been a year and a half, but in the interest of full disclosure and complete, painful honesty, I still struggle with his death tremendously on most days. So Father’s Day is just one of those days when my grief is a little more overwhelming than most.

So my Father’s Day post will be twofold: I will celebrate my husband, Dylan’s father, for he is awesome and deserves the praise. And I will recall my own father, and some of the things I miss most, and I will grieve, because he was amazing and deserves the memorial. Here goes…

Dad, I miss your laugh, how robust it was and how quick you were to dissolve into it. I miss your phone calls, the ones that didn’t open with hello but with the beginnings of what was sure to be a hilarious story (“So I was feeding my fish today, and wouldn’t you know…”). I miss your voracious appetite, and the way you loved food. I will never forget the day you discovered Nutella; when we cleaned out your kitchen, there must have been 6 unopened jars waiting to be devoured by you. I owe MY love of food and cooking to you, and every time I’m in the kitchen I feel you there, urging me to add more butter. I miss your hands, how they were rugged and tan and weathered from a lifetime of making your living with them, but still soft and gentle and somehow smooth. I miss your belief in me, undying and unwavering as it was. I miss your smell, Oldspice and dirt and Irish Spring. I miss YOU, every single day. And I ache when I look at Dylan, because you would have loved her. She is, and I’m not exaggerating here, the coolest thing ever. I am so sad that you never got to meet her, but I am sadder still that she will never get to meet you. My memories are all I have to share with her. And that breaks my heart, a little bit everyday. You were the best dad anyone could ever hope to have, and on Sunday, if I cry just a little, its only because I miss you so.

Ok, onto happier musings!

Tom, I love you for who you are to me, but I love you even more for who you are to our daughter. The smiles you get from Dylan melt my heart and make me jealous, all at once. Even at 10 months old, she seems to understand that you are her center, her protector, her champion, and her friend, and that makes me grateful. Grateful that I chose right when I picked you (not that I was doubtful). You are an amazing father, and I tear up a little every time I see you with her, the way you play, the way you snuggle, the way you teach and lead and encourage and amuse. You are patient, giving, supportive, and most of all, you LOVE that little girl. With a fierceness and voracity and urgency that is both shocking and admirable. The future is scary sometimes, and I lie awake at night fretting about Dylan, worrying about how to protect and help her and guide her and teach her. And then I look at you, and I am calmed. Because you are her father, and for as long as you live, you will devote your life to hers. Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you, from Dylan, and from me.

Hug your dad, Sunday and everyday. If you can’t hug him, call him, email him, tell him how much he means to you. I did, everyday, and I wish I had done it more. Happy Father’s Day everyone.

Sometimes I look at Dylan, when she’s playing or sleeping or in her daddy’s arms, and I am so overcome with an urgent, almost frantic feeling of love that I have to turn away to keep the tears at bay. I did not know it was possible to love another person that much. I did not know it could hurt.

I read all the stupid baby and pregnancy books.  I have 2 sisters with 5 kids between them.  I have plenty of friends with kids.  So I figured I had all my bases covered, there would be very few surprises in store for me during pregnancy, labor, and after I had the baby.  Well, I’m writing this post, so suffice it to say, the books suck, my friends are all bitches, and if I wasn’t related to my sister’s, I probably would have kicked them both in the vagina.

I’ve written a post about all the crap that happened during pregnancy that I was not prepared for: crippling heartburn, grotesque, side-show like swelling, the fact that growing a human inside of you is incredibly painful.  And then there was the labor, which if I may be frank, was a complete mind fuck that even if someone had told me play by play how it was gonna go down still would have completely brought me to my knees.  But what I’m still discovering, day by day, is that there is a myriad of crap that happens or is different AFTER you have the baby.  Not just right after (after the ringer I put my body through making the kid, I was expecting a substantial recovery period), but 10 MONTHS LATER.  And counting.

Let me start with the physical changes.  I have by this point lost all the baby weight (thankyouthankyouverymuch), but even though I now weigh less than I did before I even got pregnant, my body is completely different.  Like, I’m still not sure that my body was switched during the post-labor haze.  I’m rounder.  Thinner, but rounder.  It’s infuriating.  Not that I would want to walk around with my midriff showing (I have a theory that women with children no longer have the right to dress like whores), but still, I found comfort in having the option.  Another physical change, and I will try to say this as delicately as possible: when you push a human being out of your vagina, things are gonna, how shall I say…shift?  Stretch?  Smoosh?  And apparently, these things are permanent.  I never paid much attention to how it looked before I had a baby, but I’m PRETTY SURE it was a lot prettier.  And smaller.  Take a moment to get that mental image out of your head, I’ll wait.

Better?  Ok, let’s continue.  So I’m rounder, my lady bits are uglier, and don’t even get me started on my boobs.  I cringe to think what they’re gonna look like when I’m finally done breast feeding.  But these are minor changes, at least to me.  I have an incredible baby, and an equally incredible husband who somehow still finds me sexy, despite the not-so-pretty lady bits.  What has really got me freaked out are the silent, potentially deadly changes that have happened since I had Dylan.  Like, how I’m all of the sudden allergic to cats, which I’ve had as pets all my life.  Including now.  Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.  Or the recent revelation that not only am I allergic to cats, but also to a common antibiotic that I’ve taken countless times before I got pregnant.  And that I took again a couple of weeks ago.  Which, incidently, is how I found out I was allergic to it.  To anyone reading who may be wondering, let me be the first to tell you: taking a medication for 5 days and THEN finding out you’re allergic is probably not the best way to go about it.  A bout of hives and the worst flu symptoms I’ve ever experienced later, I’m still alive and (somewhat) ticking.  But still.  Kinda scary, and supremely annoying, to find out you’re allergic to a medication.  While taking said medication.

So to anyone who may be reading who is pregnant, or will one day be pregnant, please heed my warning: the messed up, weird stuff that happens to your body while you’re pregnant doesn’t necessarily stop after you have the baby.  In fact, this glorious, amazing, life changing thing called pregnancy can one day maim or kill you, long after the heavy lifting is done.  Just keep that in mind.