Happy Father’s Day!

June 16th, 2014 by ariana

A day late, but I couldn’t not wish Jeff, my dad and all the wonderful Dads I know a happy Father’s Day!

We had a wonderful day, FINALLY getting to go for the first swim in our pool which has been nothing but trouble since we first tried to open (and failed) Memorial Day weekend. But finally after a ridiculous amount of work on Jeff’s part and a small fortune paid to run a new gas line, the pool is open!

After a lovely meal with my parents I had chance to look through the Father’s Day gifts Jasper and the girls had made him at Daycare -they always make me weepy. There is just something about those craft projects that just sort of capture the pure joy of parenting those little beings. But this year, there was one project that had me in tears, but not the weepy kind:

I have type it out just in case you can’t read it. Jasper’s answers in bold:
My Dad is a Superhero because: Because he’s strong!

My SuperDad’s Suphero power is: That’s his power.. he’s strong (I already said that dumbass! Ok, Jasper didn’t say dubmass, but that’s how it read in my head!)

He’s as strong as: Maybe a heavy rock

He’s as fast as: Well, my dad’s not that fast actually.

This kills me because anyone who knows Jeff well knows that he doesn’t rush for ANYONE OR ANYTHING!

I think I first realized this about him when we were living in Alphabet city which was pretty far from the nearest subway station. In the winter we would sometimes take the 14D bus and if it was cold you would definitely want to make that bus rather than stand outside FREEZING your ass off waiting for the next one. So I was definitely not above jogging to catch a bus that was about to leave, but Jeff? He’d just let it go. I think he’d pretty much let anything happen rather than break into a jog.

In fact the only time I think I’ve ever seen him move with lightning speed was when Jasper ran onto an elevator as it’s doors were about to close – he leapt into immediate action and was almost unrecognizable to me as he darted onto the elevator to rescue Jasper (knocking me over in the process!) Of course it this makes perfect sense to this former astrologer that a Taurus would behave this way, but it’s still amusing that 5 year old Jasper picked up on this quirk of Jeff’s personality!

In other news, you may or may not have seen this image of Jeff and Jasper on the cover of the Canon father’s day circular last Sunday:

Here’s a iphone shot of the cover itself:

I was of course incredibly honored that they chose my image. But also it made me nostalgic for the days when I could tote my camera around anywhere, ready to catch moments such as these…

Fast forward to now with the twins and I’m on duty as baby chaser at all times. The few times I’ve been brave enough to bring my camera anywhere it’s been a monumental waste of effort and worrying about it’s well being when I go running off after one of the girls just adds to the chaos.

Which limits my ability to document life with our three to stolen snapshots at home where all of these were taken… sometimes it’s low on my list of priorities, but I’m glad I occasionally make a point to capture the incredible bond my husband has with our children, whether it’s with my “real” camera or just my iPhone!

And I can’t not include one of my favorite images of Jeff and Jasper of all time..

Can you see a theme emerging? Yes, he loves to play guitar for them. Lately the girls like to climb right up onto his lap while he’s playing and “play” with him. So cute!

So Happy Father’s Day to the player of soundtracks, kisser of boo boos, pretend fight master, plumber, gardner, fence mender, chef, strong as a bolder superdad – you are the glue that keeps this family together and we love you so much!