Dear Hubby
Well, hasn’t the last 20 months been a wild ride! We made a tiny human and now she has somehow transformed into a walking, talking person bursting at the seams with attitude and all the cute in the universe.
I couldn’t think of anyone that I would want to share this journey called parenting with more than you. We’ve been able to laugh through most of it and the challenges of sleep regressions, tantrums and poos in the bath have made us even stronger. If we can parent, then we can do anything.
But I was looking at you while you were sleeping last week and I noticed something that I haven’t seen before, a grey hair. And I think Olivia and I might have something to do with that…
I’m sure you recall it better than I do but do you remember the first time I went out at night when Olivia was only 8 weeks old? “She’ll be fine”, I said, “she won’t even know I’m gone”. 30 minutes after I left you called me and while I couldn’t hear you over Olivia’s piercing screams, I could sense the utter terror that you were feeling. I felt helpless. I raced through my meeting and arrived home two hours after I had left to find you sitting on the couch traumatised, with a sleeping baby in your arms. I have never felt so much heat radiating from a person as I did that night.
Then there were the times that I laughed at you when you were the victim of a baby poosplosion making contact with your skin. I’m sorry, but it was really funny.
But my ills are nothing compared to those of your daughter, otherwise known as the tornado of chaos. The time she smashed your iPhone screen. Or the time she hid your PS4 remote and you couldn’t find it for three whole weeks. Or my particular favourite, when she tipped milk in your brand new RM Williams boots and you discovered it only when you put your shoes on in the morning.
You’ve had to buy new sunglasses after she snapped your old Ray Bans, change clothes for work after she put her jammy fingers all over your pants and replant the plants that she so helpfully dug up after you had just planted them.
And so this Father’s Day Olivia and I are wiping the slate clean. We are undoing the chaos and misery and giving you a break with an adventure experience. Something to get your heart racing (if it doesn’t race enough every day) and your adrenalin pumping – how does diving with sharks sound? Or maybe it will be wine tasting and a cruise? Or the chance to master your BBQ skills in time for summer?
Whatever we choose, know that we love you and that we hope that you don’t need to punch a shark.
Love
Your wifey
