Dear Skylar,

It could be argued that each life is a story, and each story is woven together into an ever-evolving epic; but every story needs a beginning, middle and end. Seven billion disjointed plot points at any given time, each conflicting with another, leaves a lot of plot holes. And within each plot point is a billion smaller plot points, which makes one question what the point of the original story ever was. 

My whole life, all I ever wanted to do was tell stories, create characters and their motivations; weave them between each other and figure out what makes them tick. Make them simple to empathize with but hard to figure out, and wrap everything in a neat package by the end of four hundred pages. Often, this requires months of work, hours lost daydreaming and the sanity of everyone around.

Yet, in mere moments, life created a new story of its own. 

That story has a beginning, a middle and an end, but so do the opening pages. It begins with a series of climaxes, denouments and settings in itself. I may have lost several readers by now, some scratching their heads at the over-complication for a simple trainwreck of thought, but I’m getting there.

On the morning of your birth, a silver car pulled up to a red house. It was warm for the beginning of January, but there was enough snow for the coffee that spilt over my hand to melt snow. Past a red gate the cold made impossible to open, I made in the front door and down the stairs.

“Shy?” I called. 

“I’m here,” she said, “In the bathroom.”

(….at which point I’ll skip over some icky details and to the main event…..)

Turns out, you had passed your first bowel movement inside the womb, which made getting you to the hospital more pressing. The lady from the hospital desk dispatched an ambulance and told us to gather what we needed (again, I’m skipping certain details) and waiting for the paramedics to arrive. 

Now, your Mom was nothing but prepared. Over the preceding months, she’d packed that hospital bag three or four different ways, a thousand different times. Everything was ready to go when the other shoe finally dropped. Still, that did little to mentally prepare her for the hours ahead. Grandma paced back and forth, picking apart the hospital’s instructions.

“Why would they ask you for a shoelace?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“Said it had something to do with giving birth at home.”

By the time the paramedics arrived, your Mom didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. There were two veteran medics and a student, who seemed to be on a training day of sorts. He asked questions, helped by the lead medic who quizzed us on anything his pupil had left out. 

Papa appeared in the doorway holding one of his shoe’s laces.

“Found one.”

The medics asked about the pregnancy, the broken water, the contractions. With little to add, I kept quiet, also weary from a long night. Excitement and anxiety had given way to exhaustion, but it mattered little. Adrenaline kept my body hooked up to an extended battery. I wasn’t about to sleep anytime soon. 

When the student had collected all the information he needed, Mom was asked to get dressed and gather what she needed. We told the medics that Shyla’s doctor operated out of the Civic on Ottawa’s other side, rather than the nearby General, and she’d told us we were required to go there. 

Grandma and Papa loaded the hospital bag into their car- a huge duffel bag I’d much questioned the necessity for. They would drive the monster across town, which included everything from make-up to baby clothes and diapers to Cosmo magazines. I accompanied Mom as she was loaded on a stretcher into the ambulance.

This was the best part of her morning so far.

(Before we left, I called Aunt Leah to alert the family of Mom’s situation and made several Facebook posts, so half the world knew you were on your way. In that process, I forgot some crucial components of our trip. To name a few; pants of any kind for Mom, the camera we got specifically for your birth and my phone charger.)

In the ambulance, the student was pressed by his mentor to second answers to question previously asked. As they monitored Mom’s heartbeat, they asked again about timing, the colour of her amniotic fluid, and her general health. She laughed between questions as I watched bends of the highway disappear in the distance.

My heart was jumping out of my chest. Incessant questions about the quality of my parenthood and the state of our finances took a backseat to concern for your Mom and waiting for time to stop. 

I just held her hand until it did. 

to be continued…..

Dear Skylar,

Mere days before you were born, we knew you’d be late. The thing about reading through a library’s worth of pregnancy texts and sucking Google dry on everything baby taught us some precious truths. Labour’s going to suck. What to expect from life’s first moments. If you’re not going to be here two weeks early, you’ll probably be two weeks late. 

On January 6th, twenty-four hours past your expected arrival, I told your Mom that I had a feeling about the eighth. 

On the night of the seventh, we trudged through light snow to wait for my bus to work. As the blaring headlights almost missed us, standing on the questionably dry pavement, I had a feeling our lives were about to change forever, but accepted tomorrow might come to pass without you.

Kissing your Mom goodbye and boarding the bus, I got a final glimpse of you emerging under the coat I bought her for Christmas. She disappeared from my view almost immediately. 

I was greeted by people just past the swinging doors of the employee entrance.

“No kid yet?”

“Is she here?”

No, I said. Do you think I’d be here if she was?

I already had the week booked off- something I’d repeatedly grilled my bosses on to make sure there’d be no confusion. 

“Oh,” said one, “Well, I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

Instead of dissecting the thousand reasons Mom’s water hadn’t broken, I went straight to work, stocking the store shelves, getting lost in tediousness, repetition and lyrics to songs I don’t even like. Anything to get my mind off….well, everything. I existed in a little bubble of anxiety for the moment, and work was my tranquilizer.

We broke for lunch at 3 a.m. 

Thank God, I thought. I need a smoke. I was a puppet to pallets of popcorn, soup and sandwich meats in cans; victim of wayward plastic sheeting and bales of cardboard, and since I was usually responsible for hauling skids to the backroom, I assessed our situation endlessly. Could I turn nine pallets of overstock into three, and if not, maybe four?

Then someone stuck a needle to my bubble.

“Anything?”

“What?”

“Any news on the baby?”

Pop. There it was. I made it four hours without someone asking me about you, four hours without the lump in my throat. Four hours. 

I forced the rest of my sandwich into my mouth, shook my head and went back to work. My boss stopped me on the way back to the foods department to ask about our progress. I assured him everything would be done for 7- shelves stocked, skids returned to their rightful corner, and sales floor clean. 

At five, I stopped stocking and grabbed a pallet jack, pumping mounds of juice, candy and towers of cereal onto its creaky wheels. There’s usually anywhere from four to twenty skids a night to be pulled, and tonight I was thankful for the extra help my boss allotted me. Side by side, I worked with a guy from the back to condense fourteen skids into eight. 

As I was pulling my final skid down the freezer aisle, I stopped to check my cell phone for that crucial message on my home screen. 

Shye (2 messages)

My eyes stopped at Mom’s name. My heart stopped.

With shaking hands, I opened the message.

Nick, my water broke.

Just now.

I’ll never forget those words, the way my hand released the pallet jack. The cold metal bar snapped, returning to its default position.

I had only one thought. 

Get home.

“Jeff,” I told my co-worker, “I have to go.”

Leaving him to finish pulling my skid, I set out across the monstrous store to find my boss. With five minutes before we opened for the day, he was bound to be touring the floor with day managers. Asking  people if they’d seen him, I reached for the intercom, when I saw him and the co-managers not thirty feet from me. 

I filled him on the situation and he wished me luck. 

“Don’t look down there,” he added with a grin. “Whatever you do, you don’t want to look down there.”

Now, over the course of the last month, I had several ladies at my work pressing me for details on the pregnancy, series of questions that bordered on harassment. It was public knowledge you were on the cusp of birth, and they were all expecting pictures of the aftermath. 

One of them offered to drive me home, but a support manager was already on top of the situation, armed with coffee. He’d driven me home before, and didn’t require directions. 

I didn’t even know which way to point myself, let alone someone else.

New lives were about to begin.

This had to go like clockwork.

(to be continued…..)

    If you live to be a hundred,

                I want to be one hundred  

                                                       minus one day

                                                           so I never have to live 

                                                            without you.

                                                                                                                           -Winnie the Pooh

Dear Skylar,

It has been twelve nights and thirteen days since you were born, and I still don’t have the words. I am exhausted, sometimes frustrated and absolutely beyond belief, but I don’t know how we ever did life without. You have infused yourself between Mom and I like you’ve always been there, waiting for us to come around. I have never missed sleep this much in my life, but I’ve also never wanted to stay awake so badly.

I don’t have the time to write.

I don’t have much time for my gaming.

I spend way too much personal time boiling bottles in advance, saving Mom, going to work, feeding you, burping you and I’m far more involved with changing tables and bath time that I ever thought I’d be. I hate it when you start screaming and it’s a struggle to make anything for dinner beyond microwaveable beans. You wait until your diaper is opened up to shit everywhere and you hate hats. Who hates hats?

All that aside, you are amazing in every way. The way you smile already (I told Mom it’s gas), watching you toss and turn and wonder what you’re dreaming about, dressing you up in boy outfits just to poke fun at your Mom. These are the things that make my life complete.

The best feeling, of course, is wanting to get you out the house, or escape to work, only to want you back ten seconds after one of us leaves. Or wanting you to finally go to sleep, just to wake you ten minutes after.

I don’t know what we were thinking when we decided to keep the baby those many months ago, but whatever it was, I’m glad we did it, happy the thought was there, because I can’t imagine my life without you.

(Seriously Dad? Are you done?)

Yeah, for now. But don’t think we’re done here.

(Whatever, Dad.)

I love you too.

Kids.

We did it. After many months of waiting and some very anxious final hours, we brought you into this world, into a loving family and into our arms. I may have heard your voice before I saw your face, but rarely do we meet our decisions in person and feel no regret and don’t ask, what if?

The first few hours have provided us with joy we’ve never known, responsibility we’ve never had, and a beautiful new experience. If words could captivate what I feel when your eyes briefly open, and curmudgeonly meet mine, I’d have them. If something that epic could be written, I’d set out on a quest to write it.

The pregnancy may be over, but the main event is just beginning.

The labour story is forthcoming. It is a day in my life I will never forget, but I don’t want to transcribe it in these letters until I know the words I need to write about it.  In the meantime, I will sleepily boil bottles, try to keep you comfortable and hope that soon, you’ll sleep through an entire night.

Welcome to the family, daughter.

We love you.

Dad.

“Like a nervous happiness, right?”

“More like a happy nervousness.”

Dear Skylar,

I’ve felt many things during the course of this pregnancy, but no words do justice to the sensations I’m feeling now. This landscape of emotion, its patches of tall grass and silent wind, is barren yet so full.

The clock counted down to midnight. Still no Skye.

I have spent the last couple weeks so excited, caught up in the holiday insanity and anticipation of the big day, I forgot the fearful aspect of this transition. That moment when your Mom told me she really was pregnant, being winded by reality. It’s a plane crash over my meadow of tranquility. I am afraid to see what wreckage lies over the hill, but that bigger part of me needs to see it for myself.

I can’t say I’ve ever been more scared.

The clock will count down to midnight once again, and I doubt we will see you tomorrow.

But we’re waiting for a signal, that fading taillight to let us know it’s okay to barrel down the hillside, sidestepping upturned roots, kicking leaves aside and sometime before dark, we will find what we’re looking for.

We’re just waiting for a sign that our new lives are about to begin.

And I think that’s worth experiencing every emotion in the spectrum at least once before it happens.

This is my first post of 2012, only days from your impending arrival. It’s been nine months since you stepped out from under a pregnancy test, took our hearts by surprise and our lifestyle on a 180 degree crash course in adulthood.

I have no doubt we’ll make mistakes. I’ve heard all the advice, concerns, and second guessings. I am not aiming to be a perfect parent. I already know I’ll never live up to that model. I just happen to know the difference between a dad that occasionally falls short and a dad who doesn’t try at all. I know the difference between a promise and a bluff- the first broken in the most dire circumstances, the second insincere to begin with.

My dad liked that second one a lot.

New Year’s resolutions always fail. That’s why they’re called a resolution- they’re a temporary lapse in poor daily habits.  Too much wine, good and weight gain makes us think we can repent by the end of the week.

Look! It’s a fresh start!

In 2012, I’m making a lifelong resolution; to always put you before myself, to love you the way every child should be loved, and to teach you everything I can to survive on your own. I won’t have to make it again in 2013, because this doesn’t come with an expiration date, little lady. Not even the most dire circumstances will break it.

Think I’m bluffing? Try me.

And a sidenote:

Even though we know you’re going to drag the shit out of your birth, making your Mom go crazy an extra week and a half, both of us are literally jumping with excitement you’re due in 2 days. Well, okay. Your Mom’s not exactly jumping. She’s cleaning everything. Moving things. Just about walking into walls.

I digress.

Because I’m definitely jumping.

Until the labour starts, anyway.

No strategy will keep the force of an object from its own will if it has enough traction. Day-to-day life has that traction.

It’s easy to let life become a blur, weeks fade into another and take people we love for granted. But once in a while, most of us are lucky enough to be reminded how important those individuals are. For whatever rut we find ourselves, somebody out there has it worse. For every unspoken conflict hiding in the open, there’s someone who has no one to share those experiences with each year.

For every newborn, another friend is mourning.

My heart goes to those who have lost something this year and happiness for those who have found it. For Shyla and I, it has been a year of joy and discovery, but also of loss, as she lost her father in early 2011. On the other hand, new life was created will join us in a few weeks. Or maybe tomorrow. I’m not clear on that. But we’re on standby.

If 2011 has reminded me of anything, it’s that I have an amazing family and they stand behind me, no matter what. If last year was about discovering who I was, this year was about my family as it doubled and continues to grow. I no longer have any doubt these are people I’m “stuck” with.

These are people I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Dear Skylar,

Today your Mom and I determined, at most, there are 24 days until we meet you. And there are a lot of people waiting to meet you. As we sit around a bright beacon of evergreen light, exchanging gifts and gouging turkeys, raising our glasses to yet another year and the fact we’re all still here, you will be the most important gift we could receive.

Yes, firstborn daughter of mine, there is a bevy of relatives awaiting your arrival, hanging on every update and gasping at every cringe in your Mom’s face. While she is the most anxious (that goes without saying), and with me right behind her, there are grandparents, aunts, uncles, distant relatives that to this day you’re dead sure aren’t in the family bloodline, and you’d be right.

Even Jenkins (the family pet) knows change is in the air. Your Auntie Leah is impatient, your Uncles Stef and Boss pretend it’s no biggie (though they are excited too, and your Auntie No-No think it’s hers.)

Mom isn’t sure when she’s going to get to ever hold you.

We have many people to thank for where we are today; the endless outpour of support, gifts and optimism these last few months have brought. Both our families gave us a roof for our heads and food for our table (even if we don’t have one). Our friends encouraged us, and became family in the process.

We wouldn’t be here without their help.

Aunt Jess filled your dresser and was an encyclopedia on babies when I needed to look them up.

Granny and Gramps drove us to endless appointments and rented us our first home, donated the first place you slept at home, and helped Dad get to work when he couldn’t afford the bus.

Aunt Marissa and Uncle Jeff bought your mattress; Uncle Stef was a constant confidante, as he’s always been to me, and the cat kept us busy destroying the house we just cleaned.

I can’t express how grateful we are for the many people that eased our transition into impending parenthood, only that we hope they know they are forever members of our tiny family,and always will be.

Merry Christmas, Skylar.

There’s no better place to spend it than with the people you love.

Dear Skylar,

This will bring the first lie I’ve ever told you full circle. It’s not a habit I’m that eager to get into.

I told you the preceding post on this blog would be the last I wrote before your birth, but this is life. Nothing is set in stone. Circumstances change, solutions evolve. Stories get re-written in the blink of an eye. Promises made are broken. Ambition wanes over time.

Lies are told.

Let me back up, because I phrase that in pretty extreme ways for something as minor as an extra blog post when “you said I wasn’t going to have read yet another one, Dad!”

People will tell you that lies are bad, they destroy lives and wreak general havoc on the people around us. And while 99.9% of our daily lives should be bare-bones and pleasant mornings, can you imagine remaining sane in that reality? One in which there are no conflicts, no challenges to face the day and conquer?

We’d all die of boredom.

Tension is far more interesting. That’s why fiction and stories interest us. In conflict, we find our true character. Using challenges, we build ourselves and in choice, we conquer or fail.

Coming back to the subject of lies (and that 99% of people who bullshit themselves about human honesty), it’s never so black and white. In order to stave off that circus freakshow of perfection, we’re all on a need-to-know basis with each other. Society expects us to know when to tell the truth and when to remain silent.

Not all dishonesty is bad. Parents lie to their children about little things to preserve the magic of wonder (and hopefully you’ve long forgiven me for Santa Claus by the time you have children.) Dads lie to Moms about how close they really were to that flying brick, if only to spare his wife the worry.

We say we’re fine when we’re not. We have to apologize when we don’t want to. We have to stave off bill collection at the end of the month. There’s a hidden art society teaches us about lying, that people accept it even when it blatantly contradicts the action.

My final point is this. When people tell you about what’s right and  what’s wrong, it’s not always wise to question it aloud, but it’s usually a good idea to ask yourself “why?” in your head. If it will hurt another person, it’s probably a bad idea. If you’re telling your boyfriend he looks good on a bad day, it can’t hurt. But govern yourself by a reasonable set of ethics, not what other people tell you.

Live for yourself, and keep the right people around you?

You’ll go a long way, kid.

This will likely be my final post to you before your birth. With all the craziness surrounding the holidays (of which I’m part), my broken computer keyboard, tending to your mother and other asinine details, there’s just too much to do, to see, to take care of.

These last eight months have been the happiest of my life. Your existence has made better people of us. I remember staring at an inconclusive pregnancy test over your Mom’s shoulder, wondering what it all meant. I remember panic, the knots in my stomach and the absolute certainty in my heart. Never in my life had I felt so simultaneously euphoric and terrified of what’s to come.

I remember your mother crying in Nana’s arms, and her brave fight against vices that couldn’t continue if there was to be room to accommodate your health.

I remember countless doctor appointments, ultrasounds and the weeks between them that stretched on forever.

I remember seeing you on a sonograph for the first time. You were the most beautiful black-and-white movie I’ve ever seen.

I remember August 10th, your second ultrasound, how hopeful we were to find out the sex of our child, and the disappointment your mother felt when you wouldn’t turn around to show us.

I remember the next day, when we met your baby doctor.

I remember when we learned you would be our little girl, and calling everyone in the world to tell them your name.

I won that bet.

Most of all, I remember the moment I knew I would love you forever, my hand on your Mom’s tummy in a dark movie theater. Every time you kicked at the outside world after that, I think I fell in love with you even more.

After eight months, a million appointments, loads of free stuff from your Aunt Jess and many others, making your Mom a bazillions peanut butter sandwiches and weeks that dragged on forever, an era of our lives is coming to a close.

Tomorrow, a week from now, or halfway through January, a new chapter will begin.

But I will always treasure watching you grow inside Mommy, little steps to an outside world that made me grow up faster than I wanted to. I will always remember feeling there was not enough time to get ready but wishing that tomorrow would come.

Ultimately, I will always remember falling in love with you a little more each day.