Husband

He wakes up on weekend mornings, groggily pulls on a t-shirt, shorts, and then picks up the baby and leaves me to a silent bedroom. He opens the door to our son's room, releasing the hurricane that blows all thoughts of sleep and warm beds and coziness away. He feeds the hurricane, changes diapers, does laundry, picks up stray Cheerio's, runs the dishwasher, wipes down counters and sinks and then feeds the baby and plays with The Boss.

He wrestles with our little force of nature and cradles our littlest one in the crook of his arm. He's quick to offer high-five's of encouragement but also goes toe to toe with the difficult task of discipline when it's needed - when our son is kicking and writhing and yelling for just one more book before light's out (even though, he has already been read four or five.)

He is the type of father I might have liked for myself. The type of father who will instill a healthy blend of confidence and goofy humility. Who carefully walks the balance between tousling hair, saying "Shake it off Kiddo" and scooping the child up in his arms and letting him rest and recover on his shoulder.

I'm not saying, of course, that he isn't flawed (because who isn't?) - but his very nature is that of a family-man. A man who grew up wanting only this - to be a husband and father, and the rest - jobs, cars, houses? All details - blurs whizzing by in the peripheral.

I'm struck by this because there were times growing up, when I felt as though I was in the peripheral of my own father's vision.

My father loves in different ways than my husband. He shows affection by giving gifts, in working hard to earn the money to pay for the gifts. He understands people on a more tactile, 'what's wrong - and how can I fix it' sort of way. And I often felt like a problem to be fixed, rather than an individual to be encouraged.

I won't go on to depict my father as a sort of villain, which he wasn't. But I will say, that this man that I married - I appreciate him even more, having come from the household that I did. Having come from tense Saturday mornings of to-do lists and nagging and shouting matches - it's nice to be given this gift of a couple more hours of sleep - and to wake up to a smiling man, playing with his children. (And, of course, the scrubbed sink doesn't hurt either...)