father's day

cory thanked me last night for not "embarrassing" him on social media, as there were many posts celebrating fatherhood. obviously, i just took the gratitude and didn't say anything of my plans to dedicate a whole blog post to cory as a father. sshhhh, don't tell him!

as many of you know, i have an eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which means i've been slowly losing my eyesight (if we were talking about this, at this point cory would use his favorite #dadjoke, "what, you're blind?!" to which i'd roll my eyes, having heard this joke, maybe 743 times throughout our marriage). and as if parenting wasn't hard enough, this whole "legally-blind thing" certainly adds a whole new element to taking care of babies. that being said, cory has been the support that every mother needs, especially one who has to deal with her own physical challenges on a daily basis. 

cory and i have been married three years and i am grateful every day that he is my husband. i have numerous blog posts about him and the many little things he has done for me over the last few years. i could easily write a novel on how wonderful he is to me. however, it is only in the last six months that i have watched cory as a father and i guess, that's what my second book would have to be about (how am i going to make this post a reasonable length?!). father's day is a perfect excuse to document the joy i get from watching cory embrace his new role as a dad. 

from the first day our baby was born, cory exemplified his best self as levi's father. parenthood consists of a lot of mundane tasks including diaper changes, feeding, clothing, bathing, rocking to sleep and so on. cory works his 9 hour work days and then takes part in those rituals, without complaint. because i don't drive, we go everywhere as a family, and cory always volunteers to wear levi and journeys around the grocery store with levi in the ergobaby looking at produce or donuts. it is challenging to quickly run errands, especially with a sleeping baby and i often sit in the car with levi, while cory runs into get whatever we need because it really is impossible for me to efficiently do such things. cory also has the keen ability to make levi laugh just by looking at him. he is our resident nail-trimmer. cory cleans up all the dried food that mom missed on levi's face and swims with him in the deep end of the pool. levi spends many nights rolling on the carpet with his daddy, giggling as cory makes absurd noises that i am surely too dignified to utter, and reading in dad's recliner. i never knew my heart could feel so full, as it does when i watch cory and levi together.  

i always knew cory would be a wonderful father. i think that's why i never worried about being a mother and not being able to see if my baby had diaper rash or check on the baby in the dark...cory is the type of person who DOES stuff. he doesn't sit around and talk about learning new things. he orders books or watches tutorials and ignores social conventions (thank you youtube for our new brakes and rotors).  i have no doubt that when our children ask him if they can build a tree house or how fireflies glow, that cory will do everything in his power to show them and teach them. i mean, he's seriously already taught levi that he's the "fun" parent. cory has so many talents, including painting nails (lucky little girls), and levi is lucky that cor is his dad.  

the last six months foreshadow years of sleepless nights and days where i spend one conscious hour alone with my husband and date nights spent shopping for levi...yet, parenthood with cory is the most rewarding experience. when cory and i first started dating, we were talking about some of our short and long-term goals and dreams and i told him i really wanted to be able to see (physically) my babies and he promised me i would. it's been four years to the month since that conversation and i am so happy that we got married and he was right next to me when i held and looked at our son for the first time. thank you for being the best daddy and husband, cor.