16th June 2010 , Posted by Jaime Teo
How should we celebrate Father’s Day?
This is a very significant Father’s Day to Dan and I because we’ve both had absent Dads all our lives and never celebrated it. It’s even news to me that it falls on the third Sunday of June =p
I remember the first year we were married and Father’s Day came by. It was oddly touching to me that we were alike that way. Y’know, another little detail that bonded us together. We even confessed to not knowing if we’d feel strange calling someone Dad so just as well that we both didn’t have one.
In the past, teachers and even my mother would on the rare occasion ask me if I felt like something was lacking in my life because of that. Honestly, it’s hard to miss something you’ve never had. If anything, not having a father at home taught me the importance of finding a good husband. The situation was toughest on my mother. Not us.
For Dan, I’ve heard him say so many times that he wants to be a fantastic Dad. One who will be there for his kid(s) for all the big and little things. The first night Renee was home, he was beside himself with enthusiasm to do diaper duties and kept disrupting our sleep checking her diaper to make sure she was clean. That enthusiasm has tapered some (lack of sleep puts a dampener on the most enthusiastic of us), but that has gotten Renee started on wanting to be clean and dry all the time. So there. First proof that Dads have an impact on a child’s life.
Dan also gets exclusivity to bathing Renee (until she can stand under a shower) – I don’t think I’ve got the strength to hold her in the water with one hand and clean her with the other. Besides, the look of trust and comfort on her face when Daddy bathes her is priceless. You really can tell! I heard from the baby experts at Parent Craft (Thomson Medical) that it is important for Daddy to massage his baby girl so she will know a right touch from a wrong touch when she is older. I’m thinking bathing her in addition to massaging should reinforce the message right?
Last weekend, Dan hosted the Dads For Life Blog Contest award ceremony.
He came home with this band
And wore it proudly the rest of the day =)
He came home telling me about how all these kids wrote such sweet things about their Dads (read it here! ). The one most important lesson he took away with him, was that every little thing you do as a father, matters to your little one. And true enough, when I read the entries, it’s the little seemingly mundane things a parent does, that matters the most to children.
So with that in mind, I should take Father’s day off and let Dan do everything in celebration of being a Daddy. When she’s old enough to celebrate, she’ll thank him for it, right?
4 Comments
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June 16th, 2010 at 8:11 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by donald, Jaime Teo. Jaime Teo said: Our first ever Father's day! New blog entry: http://www.maybebaby.sg/blog/2010/06/16/how-should-we-celebrate-fathers-day/ [...]
K
June 16th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I’ve lost mine this year and reading your post makes me realize how much I miss mine.
Dan will be a great Dad!
Keep on updating!! :>
Celine Yeo
June 16th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Daniel is lapping up as a new daddy. Keep it up! So great to see him being so involved
I attended the Dads for Life Conference and was ambushed by 1,000 dads on site! It was an amazing conf with Josh McDowell as speaker/dad.
Jaime Teo
June 17th, 2010 at 3:56 am
K: My condolences….
celine: Yeah – I read about the dadsforlife conference. *thumbs up to all the daddies!
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