Afternoon sweetheart -
Sorry about yesterday. Daddy has to work and sometimes, even though I want to, I can't get to writing this for you. I'll get better at it...
Where did we leave off?
Oh - right - you were just born.
So you come out and you look just like me. Your Mom is all dozy and the doctor just throws you in my arms and shoves me into a room that looks like Doctor Torkemata worked in it.
I mean there was a sink toilet - that's not a typo. There was actually a toilet that doubled as some sort of sink. That and there was all kinds of electronic equipment and it looked very much like a room a baby should not be in. But there we were - just you and I.
Now Mommy had a pretty serious surgery so... I should have been thinking about that but all I kept thinking was "What did I just do?" "What have I done here?" - Not in a bad way... just in a way that was very real all of the sudden. Right then and there - you were alive and in my arms and it was all very very real. It was different from only an hour ago when you were still just a thought or a dream.
I held you like you would hold a porcelain vase in the rain.
I started to cry a little but I didn't want to cry in front of you in our first 5 minutes. You'll find out later that Daddy cries at alot of stuff... mostly sports movies but other things too from time to time.
I didn't know what to say.
So... I introduced myself. I said - seriously - out loud "My name is Bret Matthew Scharf Holmes and I'm your dad. I was born in Rosedale MD. A place you will never really go. It was a good place to grow up though. I had lots of friends and we played and experienced lots of life. We got into trouble. We celebrated. We accomplished some things in our own way and somehow along the way I traveled a lot of the world, met lots of people, fell in love, met your mother, fell in love with her, and then bought a house, got married and now here you are."
It went something very much like that. I was nervous.
You didn't cry at all.
You just kinda stared at me. I've read that babies can't see much after they are born but I could sense that you knew who I was. I was your Daddy. You had this great head of hair - much more so than you have now at almost 5 months old. I mean you had a full head of blonde hair. Your eyes were a steel dark blue. You had a dimple on your right cheek and the only feature on your face that looked like a girl were your lips.
We finally sat down and the nurses came in with Mommy. She wasn't feeling well.
I sat down next to her with you. She held you as best she could but she was under a lot of medicine. I tried to take some pictures, but as you'll find out - and possibly inherit - don't take pictures of Mommy when she's not at her best.
We didn't have a name for you yet.
We had talked about Eleanor... and I can't remember the other one because that's what you are to me now. But there was another one in there - we didn't know what name you looked like so for a day or so there you didn't have a name. But you were pretty magical.
I held Mommy's hand. I was nervous about kissing you because I didn't want you to get germs. All I remember from the rest of that room was that you didn't cry but Daddy finally did when he saw you on your Mother's chest. It was all very real that now there were 3 of us. 3 of us united forever.
Maybe tomorrow I can tell you about your first few days in the hospital - they were pretty cool.
Dad
