A fathers love

When I got pregnant, I was very unsure of how my husband would be as a father. We had been together for a long time but I had never really seen him around children. My father in law is a really easy-going guy, who doesn’t discuss his feelings or say I love you all the time, often conversations are ended with alright. Slowly each day I have watched my husband grow into this man. Hard on the edges but soft on the inside.

When our son was born, due to complications during childbirth he was taken to the NICU after I held him for only a photo. My husband followed him down and I will never forget rolling into the room being pushed by my mother to meet our son and his now father. Chris told me all of things he had of mine, and all of things he saw of himself in our son. Chris grew a new face that day, the face of a proud dad. One I had never seen him wear before.

To understand my husband is to swim an ocean, his depth is vast, and his thoughts are deep. So watching him as a father has been a journey I am just starting but loving. I have watched him learn so much in these 19 months, and watch him grow a lot! From laying skin to skin at the hospital to rolling on the ground with our 19 month old. It has been an incredible experience for us all!

When Pearce turned 1 years old we started to introduce cows milk, here and there as the pumping at work was not sufficient. It was at this time I started to see a change in my son and husband. Slowly as I became less important my husband became Pearce’s favourite thing.  Everything is Dada, when he gets upset he now hesitates to decide which parent to run to when before it was always mama. At times I feel I am losing my sweet boy, but watching their bond is something that is so incredibly rewarding for me.

If you knew Chris before Pearce you wouldn’t recognize him, he is a man woman dream of marrying and having children with. He plays with Pearce and will always bring him into bed to cuddle, he loves getting out Peas mini hockey set and playing in our living room with him. He enjoys watching Pearce try new foods and reading books together.

Chris is also such a good supporter in parenting, he lets me follow my mother intuition and when it comes to our son we never fight. We speak openly about how we want to raise him and surprisingly we often have the same plan before we even say it out loud. It’s also nice to have a great reminder for me to be my sons ambassador, not just his “mom”. It’s great to have a husband who is there on the hard days to be dad when mom just can’t mom.

But the moment I knew that all that worrying I had done before Pearce was born ended when Chris called me and told me our energetic, crazy child fell asleep next to him on the couch. Something we never thought he would do but also, something my dad and I often did when I was Pearce’s age. Pearce is so blessed for the man who is his father, the man who will teach him to skate and hold a stick, and throw baseballs, but most of all the man who will say alright, and together they will know it means I love you.

xOx Chelsea