The View From The Top

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Dave sez,

Hey, we're Cathy and Dave. Thanks for taking the time to get to know us and follow our continuing adventure with our Number One Son, Justin, and our journey to bring Number Two Son (Ethan) Shani Home! Right now, Shani is spending a few weeks in Crimea at the beach on the Black Sea. We're still selling pieces of his puzzle to bring him home...

Let me tell you just how incredible my FIRST Father Day was!

It all started in 2010, between Christmas and New Year's when I posted here on Facebook that my New Year's Resolution was to be a Dad in 2011. Almost instantly, I was connected with my son. I was blessed to start the new year with a week of vacation to be able to spend time getting to know him. I'll never forget the drive to pick him up. I'll never forget how i was introduced to him. The ride through rush hour traffic back home. The fact that neither of us had to go anywhere and that we could spend the week together sitting around the house in our peejays watching cartoons. Up to that point, Cathy and I had been married nearly 21 years and I really hadn't been able to enjoy watching cartoons. Now I had someone to do that with. That, and play video games. We'd been trying to have children the entire twenty years we'd been married. We'd been trying to adopt for seven years. It took nine months to bring Justin home. We had so much help doing that, that more an more late last week I started to think that Thanksgiving was coming up. I really had so much to be grateful for.

I'm a dad now. I have a son...and another one on the way.

I think my boy is pretty amazing. In a lot of ways he's everything I'm not. He's very athletic. He's good at karate, soccer and basketball. He likes baseball and football. We're still working on his interest in reading. Being more physical and athletic, trying to get him to sit still and read is a bit of a challenge.But he's agreed to work on his reading during the week, if we get to do other fun things on the weekend. we just spent two days of him asking "What're we gonna be doing?"

He really doesn't have to do much of anything to be pretty amazing. If you've seen one picture of him and his smiling face, you know just how amazing he is. We don't really plan a whole lot ahead of time what we're going to do. The best fun we have is going outside and shooting hoops. We have a lot of fun and laugh alot playing basketball. He's still working on slang. Everything is points no matter what sport. make a basket? He scored a point. Made a goal in soccer? Scored another point. Got a hit in baseball? Did it score a point? I love explaining baseball to Justin! He and I go out and I pitch to him. When he hits the ball, I give him the play by play. That was a foul ball. That was a base hit; you have a man on first base. That was a double; you have a man on third and second.Okay, that hit scored your man on third. You have one run. "I have a point?" Yeah, you got a point. In baseball points are runs. Baseball's like diarrhea that way. Okay, I'm standing there pitching to my son thinking that, knowing he won't get the joke. I think it's pretty funny.

We were all pretty excited about my FIRST Father's Day, so I got my swag on Saturday, instead of on Sunday. First we went out and bought three water rifle/cannons. Three monster squirt guns. Fill 'em up, pump 'em a bit and then fire! We basically stood out in the back yard drenching each other! We were soaked to the bone when we were done. It was so much fun. Drench. Refill. Drench. Repeat. The first gift I got was a pair of shorts and a Father's Day tee shirt. I was telling Justin how cool I thought the shirt and shorts were. Smiling at me, he said - and I quote him verbatim - "Oh, that ain't nothin'. The rest of your presents, that's something. This ain't nothin'!" I actually LOL-ed!

The plan was to give me my Father's Day gifts on Father's Day, but none of us could wait, so as we were drying out, Justin gave me my bag o' swag. He told me to open Mommy's card first.Then I opened his card. It was Batman watching Super Friends in the Batcave. He and Mommy got me Hot Wheels versions of both the 1966 and 1989 Batmobiles. I got Captain America on a motorcycle that shoot a rocket.

The best part is that my son loves me and I love him.

What he wrote in the card is so amazing. In pencil, on Batman's chair he wrote:

"Happy Father's Day! You are the best Popi I ever had! I love you very much! Love Justin"

My FIRST Father's Day started during the last week of 2010, and just completed yesterday. Now, I am working toward my FIRST Father's Day with my second son Ethan for 2012. It will be pretty hard to top, but I'm pretty sure his brother and mother will be happy to help him out. Should be pretty easy. Maybe a Hot Wheels Batcycle...