Ava woke up last night just as Leah and I were getting to bed. She was crying and calling for me, and I could tell by the sound of her little sobs that she was probably just having a bad dream (we’re told it’s normal for kids to start having “night terrors” at Ava’s age). I went into her room and lay down next to her. I rubbed her back and tried to distract her with a whispered fabrication about seeing a monkey in the tree outside our house, but she continued to cry. She wasn’t even awake. And then, she just stopped. It was as if she’d never been crying at all. She rolled over, snuggled up against my chest, and started to snore.<\/p>\n
My common sense said, “Get up and go to bed. Now.” But there were two problems. First, Ava was resting with her head on my arm. I knew I wouldn’t be able to extract it without waking her. Second, being there with her was like being in another world. I brushed a small tangle of hair back behind her ear, and at that moment I thought of our friends Aprille and Denny, who are expecting their first child. How to explain to them the magic of a moment like this? Is it even worth it to try? Isn’t the fun — indeed, most of the point of having kids at all — that they get to experience this for themselves, in their own way, without any preconceived notions? I smiled as I thought about the ways their lives will change, each in their own way. There’s no way to impress upon them the depth of feeling they’ll come to know. What is the sweet taste of a strawberry or the fragrance of fresh lilac to someone who’s never known those things? And this is even better, because the scent of a lilac remains a lilac ever after that first encounter, but the emotion that comes with your child is ever changing, growing. It’s like falling in love again every time you open your eyes in the morning.<\/p>\n
This is all more profound for Leah, and sometimes I’m jealous of the particular bond she and Ava share. Even when Ava cries out for me at night — for me and not Leah — my exuberance at getting to be a father is tempered by the understanding that I’m still, and will always be, playing biological second fiddle. As wonderful as these special moments Ava and I share are, I’ll never get to know the real <\/em>deal. As a result, I tend to intellectualize the idea of my relationship with my daughter. She doesn’t need me the way she needs Leah. Does she need <\/em>me at all? I feel like it’s a decision I’m making for her, like I’m insinuating myself into her life, forcing myself on her. If I’m there for her often enough and in ways she needs, maybe I can create something akin to the link she has with her mother. I’ll become a bigger, hairier version of Leah, sans the breastfeeding.<\/p>\n Wow. That’s two <\/em>grotesque images you have to wash from your mind today…sorry, kind readers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ava woke up last night just as Leah and I were getting to bed. She was crying and calling for me, and I could tell by the sound of her little sobs that she was probably just having a bad dream (we’re told it’s normal for kids to start having “night terrors” at Ava’s age). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ava"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9oLlO-fM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}