Father's Day + Baseball = Great Memories - Father's Day 2011

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there…whoever and wherever you are.

The family and I headed out to a Colorado Rockies game today. Mateo and I representing with our Cardinal gear. Dad, well, he’s become a local…and cheers for the Rockies. Living in either N.C. or TN. neither one of us had a team until in my early teenage years, when I started cheering loudly for my beloved Cardinals. Dad, has just been a baseball fan, in general. He used to take me to minor league games growing up in Nashville and that’s really where the fever hit. Now, Mateo and Kaia are set. My brainwashing and programing them to be true RED Cardinals fans is all part of parenting right? If when they are 18 and/or have moved out…THEN, they can cheer for whatever team they wish, but not until then :) .

Seriously, this is my 3rd Father’s Day and my Dad’s 50th (I have an older sister), and they just keep getting better. I forgot to ask Dad today how he felt compared to number 1-3, but I know, as I see him with my kids, the joy has just started all over again. Their smiles and my love for them is just a perfect mixture of joy that I can’t match to anything. Baseball is such a Dad sport too, so it was just fitting today that we spend it at the ballpark.

Enjoying a Rockies game with Daddy's girl - Father's Day 2011

What a blessing it is to enjoy my family and kids today and be honored by them and thanked by them for just being me…a guy that can’t help but love them and in a large sense was made to love them. It’s become easier and now fun to sit and enjoy moments of time with them, because soon they will be gone. Because, despite looking at a picture, just like you are right now, as I write, the moment has passed and the memory is now set. The picture/video is not the same as the experience that it reflects. God blessed my life by His perfect timing, because fortunately I learned to not let these times pass without feeling them wholly. It’s taken practice but now, being present is more on than off. I’m sure I miss a lot, but I catch more, I think, because I won’t take for granted the best gift I’ve been given…FATHERHOOD.