I grew up with out a father. I knew of him and he briefly came into my life when I was very young, but he was never a part of my life. My father figures were my coaches in sports and my mom, aunt and grandmother.
I wanted to make sure that when I had a son, that I’d give him all the love and bonding that I never got from my dad. The concept is simple really. Your children are an extension of your flesh and blood. You are there to raise them, protect the and love them. It is easy for me to say my dad is a chicken shit who lacked common sense.
Even without a father, I was always the sports stud. The sport didn’t matter; I was great at it (golf not included). Even so, I could have been better at everything. What if my dad would have thrown the ball with me in the back yard? What if he would have taught me how to run the football and tackle people? What if I didn’t have to teach myself all these things by watching others do this? Would I have been NFL or MLB material? Maybe, I can’t really say for sure. What I can do is take the mistakes that my father made and stick them up his ass.
Liam is coming into his own. He’s not the baby anymore. The other day I was playing ball with him and he played back. It was the greatest feeling in the world. I felt for the first time that I was giving him something I never had and it felt great. He’s got this copy cat thing going on right now and it is very cool. If I go in the yard and kick a ball around, he’ll do the same. If I try to run and balance on the curbing, he’ll do that same. I know this will come back to bite me eventually, but it freaking cool.
Anyway, I thought I’d share some video of Liam and I breaking some rules and playing catch in the house:
