Dear Pete,

I am a lucky girl.

 

We met when I was only twenty-one. I had pink hair and an apartment. In a city.

That was a lifetime ago. In the fourteen years since we met and fell in love we have had a great adventure begun a great adventure.

Countless road trips, a thousand dreams, a million kajillion projects. Fly fishing, snowboarding, paddling, and camping. Four towns, five homes, and lots and lots of ice cream. (Really. A disgusting amount if you do the math. I need to stop thinking about it. My belly is starting to hurt.)

We have shared our home and our love with two rats, one snake, four cats, two dogs, twenty-some chickens, and now two kids.

The two kids changed allot.

We have both had moments of “really? we did this on purpose?” as we faced another sleepless night. But as you evolved almost instantly into Papa six summers ago, you became a different man. An amazingly different man.

 

 

 

No one taught you how to father. But you are making it up beautifully as you go along.

Husband. Friend. Partner. Father.

Teacher. Barber. Barista. Love.

Fixer-of-all-things-broken.

Finder-of-all-things-lost.

Obsessive-compulsive-child-temperature-taker.

Baby-sleep-disaster-mitigation-specialist.

Homeopath. Doctor. Researcher. Technician.

Musician. Comedian. Chef. Chauffeur.

 

 

So from Lupine, Sage, and I, thank you for being that guy.

The one who embraced radical ideas that have shaped our life. (Like homebirth. Family bed. Natural immunity. Waldorf. Unschooling. Gentle parenting. Extended breastfeeding. The basic stuff of how we live.) I cannot imagine where our family would be were it not for your support of my radical-hippie-mama ideas.

Thank you for being that guy who puts the seat down without ever being asked. The one who takes our kids skating and fishing and on adventures to find magic river crystals. The one who makes me a latte every morning and asks how my night was. The one who doesn’t bat an eye when our son comes out in the pink fairy wings and a tulle skirt and says that he is the “queen of fairy land.”

That guy.

That really wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving guy. (Or, in the words of an old friend’s loser ex-boyfriend “Dude, knock it off. You’re making it hard for the rest of us.”)

Thank you for making it hard for the rest of them.

I love you baby.

Happy Father’s Day.

 

And to my dad (AKA Bumpie) and all the other papas, have a wonderful Father’s Day. You bless our lives.