I’ll be brief, because sometimes it’s ok to be men’s underwear.

Today I had an OK day and a simply shocking, horrific evening, and the only saving grace was that I was able to come upstairs after banging my head against a brick wall for long, tedious hours, plop my ass down on the floor, and say to the cute little boy across the room, “Come give Daddy snuggles.”    He padded across the room, wrapped his arms around my neck, and laid his head on my shoulder for a few moments before dragging me off to the table to play with trains and cars and to comment on the TV cartoon.

I wonder if he knows that as much as he needs me at this time in his life, sometimes I need him just as badly.     Thanks a ton, buddy.

You don’t have to have a kid.

Seriously.   I know how societal pressures are, especially from your parents who may be the type that are just dying to get their hands on a baby and spoil it rotten.    Some can be sweet and gentle about it, but I’ve heard stories of those who are downright, “You will give me a grandchild, NOW!” to which I have no rational answer that doesn’t involve propping my mouth open like a codfish.

You don’t have to have a kid.

It’s hard when all your peers are making strides in life and you aren’t keeping up with the Joneses — I know.    When everyone has a snuggle buddy and you are the third wheel, you are left out.    When everyone else seems to be engaged, it’s hard not to have diamond lust and to be picking out china.   And when they’re all getting married, I’ve sat right along with you in a pew and wished I was the one standing at the top of the aisle and not them.    It sucks.    The desire to have kids can be even worse when everyone around you is pregnant or blowing raspberries into tiny bellies.

But…you don’t have to have a kid.

I have huge amounts of respect for two groups of people — those that are parents or want to be parents and love and adore their children (or their future children), and those that have said, “I never, ever want in a million years to have children and I’m not going to and I’m ok with that.”     It’s insanely harder to make that second statement, but bless every one of you for bucking society and doing what’s right for you and not what everyone says you must.

Really — you don’t have to have a kid.

The first group of people really bother me are those who fall victim to peer pressure and have a child, either because they receive pressure from relatives or friends or simply via society and marketing, but in reality, they didn’t actually want to have children as badly as everyone else wanted them to, and now they are miserable or at least not nearly as happy as they might have been otherwise.    I realize, there’s a lot of accidents out there — and they happen — and plenty of people who thought they would never want a kid, but once they did, they love it.    But there’s plenty of folks who took the leap for bad reasons.    And plenty more who will do so in the future.

I’d like to tell all these folks — you don’t have to have a kid.

The second group is parents who already have a child, thought it would be all roses and sunshine farts, and have found out that parenting and child-rearing is tough, thankless, and really cramping their style or patience.  And yet – YET — despite this personal hell that they’ve created, they want to have MORE! What the hell!?    You mean you haven’t had enough of pulling out your hair, feeling like a piece of microwaved crap, or having to grip onto your wine glass tightly to avoid mentally cracking?   Usually this is a result of — you guessed it!  Peer pressure.     Everyone else has two kids, so we should, too.    Or:  “I love being pregnant!”    “I love babies, just not toddlers.”   Or any other mind-bendingly stupid sentiment.

Get a reality check, folks — you don’t have to have a kid.   Or another one.

I am not anti-children, nor am I anti-parents.    And I fully appreciate that some parents are simply uncertain until they actually DO it and then they are lovely and wonderful and their kids are awesome.    I’m not trying to discourage people who are simply scared of making that leap and aren’t sure how they will do — heck, I shat myself daily until I got into fatherhood and realized I could actually do it and that I really, truly did love it.

I am encouraging those folk out there who, in their heart of hearts, really know that they should never be parents — it just doesn’t suit them — or those parents that have found out that it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be to simply Think.   Consider.   Ponder.   And make the right decision, no matter what anyone else says.     Do the best for you and for your children, conceived or unconceived, and make the right choice, not just the popular one.

I, at least, am on your side.    Because you don’t have to have a kid unless you really want to.

My dear Keston,

I was up very late last night (it was a Hallowed Eve, after all), long after you and Mummy had gone to bed to prepare the house for your birthday party today.   I was deep in the middle of washing the floors and was idly rinsing the soiled mop when I was suddenly overcome and nearly burst into tears standing there over the sink of dirty, grey water.    I don’t know why it suddenly hit me, but I was going to have a 2-year-old boy the next day and it suddenly rushed in on me.    It’s not like I didn’t have warning, of course…your mum and I have been hard at work preparing for this day for some weeks if not months, but…I guess I suddenly stopped to think about it.    Something as mind-numbing as mopping will do that to you.

Two years old — a whole 730 days gone by where you have been in my life, spicing it up, making me both laugh my ass off and pull my hair out, where my heart has seemingly both grown 50 times its size and I have found a wellspring of joy and happiness that — well, frankly, I’m a sour old man — I didn’t think existed in this world anymore.

And yet, there you are, day in and day out, excitedly running up to me with a, “Daddy!   Daddy!” and then your usual string of words and babble as you struggle to bring me up to speed and take me in to play on the floor with you and your trains.    Or as we’re wrestling and rolling around on the floor and we’ll stop and look each other in the eyes and you’ll push your nose in for an Eskimo kiss.     Or how you stand there on your stool, intent on being right there as my kitchen helper, partly because you want to know what I’m doing and your curiosity is almost boundless, but mostly because I’m there, and if being on a stool in a kitchen means being close to me, then you’re happy.    And so am I.

Two years ago by now we were probably hanging out in the recovery room, cooing over you wrapped tightly in a bundle and wondering what was coming next and marveling that we were now at the end of one part of the journey whilst simultaneously starting in on a much larger, unexplored one.    I think at that point my heart was so torn in different directions that I didn’t know what to think of the entire experience and now…well, I couldn’t have imagined where we’ve been so far.    I’m really excited to see where we’re going next.

I find it difficult to express into words exactly how much you consume me every day and how much I enjoy that feeling, no matter how difficult it sometimes is or how much it taxes my mind.   You are that which I think of first every morning and the person I think of every night before I fall asleep.    For nobody else do I awaken at 4:30 in the morning and get out of bed just to hover quietly by your crib to make sure you are still breathing, and safe, and warm.     Everything I do when I’m around you has some Keston-content within, whether it’s watching out to make sure you don’t get hurt, wondering how you’ll figured into plans, or simply wondering what you’re up to and what you’re thinking.

I feel like your 2nd year of hanging around this blue-green ball will be an exciting, pivotal one, as you are now getting to the point of being able to really communicate, to put words into complex sentences, to have enough vocabulary to really express yourself, and we are already starting to have some cute little conversations.    You get this big huge grin of satisfaction on your face when you say something, ending in a question, I say it back and give you an answer, and you smile huge as you say enthusiastically, “YES!”   I think you realize that we’re really starting to make some progress on this speaking-thing and within short time, we’ll really be able to pass around information and be on the same page.

I look forward to it, because if nothing else, you’ve taught me that there’s always something more about you that I want to know, and I want to understand what’s behind those dancing baby blue eyes of yours, your funny facial expressions, eyebrow lifts, and hands tossed up in a shrug while a stream of half-words come out your mouth.    And some day, when you’ve progressed far enough and understand a whole lot more, you’ll be able to read what I’ve written here and know how very much your daddy loves you and how he can’t wait to be your daddy this next year — decade — century — FOREVER.

I love you so very much, my big beautiful boy.   A very happy 2nd birthday to you.

Love,

Daddy