Father's Day weekend.
This past weekend was one of like three weekends this summer where we didn't have any major plans, and it was so nice! Friday night, we went on a bike ride, then got sno cones after. We got bikes last summer and weren't able to ride them very much since I was pregnant (and we were gone most of the summer anyway), so it has been nice to use them a bit more this year. Saturday morning we slept in, then drove up to Logan to put everything back on Carter's headstone. We hung out with the babies for a bit, then went to Summerfest and wandered around all the booths after getting some lunch.
Yesterday we (okay, mostly me) slept in again; I was having some intense allergies that I'm assuming were from the bike ride Friday night, and I could not bring myself to get out of bed. Thankfully, Brandon was super patient, and laid with me until I was finally ready to get up. We went to Cabela's, then to Walmart, then went back home to just hang out, and ended up taking a two hour nap on the couch. It was glorious.
Overall, it was a very chill Father's Day. I felt bad not doing anything extravagant, but just like Mother's Day, it was not at all how we anticipated spending our first Father's day after the birth of our baby. Babies. It felt right to acknowledge the day, but thinking about celebrating it kind of hurt. I gave Brandon a little shoutout yesterday, but I have to put in a big plug for him here:
I got extremely lucky that Brandon chose me to be his wife, but our kids are even luckier that he is their dad. He does everything he can to keep their memories alive every single day, whether that is just thinking about them, talking about them, or buying something that will make us think about them every time we look at it. He puts so much effort into caring for them the best he can, even if that just means cleaning off the headstone and rearranging all of Carter's cars. He always makes sure the solar lights are still working, and in the winter, he carefully scraped off the snow and ice so that Carter's name was showing. He does whatever he can to make it known that we do have children. After we found out we were pregnant again, we got asked so many times if little bean was our first. It was the scariest question to be asked, but every single time he would respond proudly that it was our second.
I've watched Brandon be a cat-dad for almost six years now, and I knew for a long time before we got pregnant that he would be an amazing dad. He denies that he loves the cats, but he totally does. You can see it when he talks to them, when he cuddles with them, and when he plays with them. It almost hurts to watch him interact with the cats now, because I know what it would be like to watch him with our babies. I can't wait for the day that I get to watch him interact with a child at home.
Brandon is the strongest, kindest, sweetest, and caring man I've ever known, and I wouldn't trade him for the world. He's given me so many things in our almost six years of marriage, but our children easily come in at the top of the list. He is a father in the most difficult, non-traditional way, and to me that means he is the best dad of all. Happy Father's Day B-rand. Thank you for loving our babies, fur-babies, and me. We love you!