Dad 2022: Summertime
This summer so far we have taken you to the pool and the park and San Diego bay. We went on vacation together and we ate at restaurants in Seaport Village and the Gaslamp Quarter, and we pushed your stroller down long hotel hallways and rode the elevators. This summer, your Nana came for a second visit. This summer, you met other babies at a birthday party. You passed fourteen pounds and you outgrew one set of clothes, which we gave to someone who could use them. You learned how to roll onto your side and now it seems you are always in motion. You look so big already, this growing wonder of a human being. This smiling bundle of good fortune.
It was a year ago that we found out about you. We heard you were on your way and that was the start of all these happy days. The passageway unfolded. The start of this journey through so many moments, big and small, all joyful and new.
Mom is back to work again, working from home, helping people like she loves to do—like she’s good at doing. I watch you when she’s on the job at the desk upstairs, and then mom and I tag team each other and I write my book for a little bit. Our home is pretty busy sometimes, calm and easy other times. Through it all, you roll on the floor and bounce in your bouncer and hug your bunny. You nap and suck your fingers and I show you the Monsters, Inc. movies. Mom talks to you in Italian and you FaceTime with family and you are read to. You join me in your stroller on long walks outside. You give Apricot strange looks when she licks my face. You make sounds with your mouth and I echo those sounds back to you, and in this way, we have deep conversations about life.
Our family likes the summer in this house, and we want to stretch it out as far as we can.
This summer, Beyonce has been inspiring the rest of us: “I’m on that new vibration, I’m building my own foundation.” And this summer, Metric has been singing about time, “flying on a path, moving through the sky, I don’t ever want to land.” And this summer, I swear Johnny Marr is speaking to me when he belts out, “it’s been so long coming, to be someone.” Because for me, it has been a long time coming. It’s been so long, and now I feel like a new someone—I’m your dad, your father in our first family summer, building our foundation, gurgling with you about life, flying on our path. And I don’t ever want to land.