There is something amazing about paint. Ah! The smell of work!!!
I’ve written about Father’s Day before but now I’m going to write about how I spent my 1st Father’s Day.
I spent my 1st Father’s Day painting, or, rather, my first father’s day weekend. Oh, yes, PAINTING! Forgive the CAPITALIZATION but I feel it is necessary to fully convey my DISSATISFACTION about spending a day FOR DADS working.
In truth, I’m mostly joking, but when I wrote about how much I hate moving before I had only scratched the surface of the sacrifices I would enact in preparation for our first child.
Allow me to “paint” a picture for you:
A couple, young & cute, an extremely virile husband (me) and a petite, attractive, and 33 weeks pregnant woman (my wife) pack up all of the their belongings and move 2 miles to a slightly larger duplex to prepare for the birth of their son, Cillian. They’ve moved in swiftly, and are already settling in… but wait (drama!) the paint in the duplex has the wrong undertone and several shades (one) too dark. What will they do!?
The wife pleads an aesthetic case to the supremely attractive husband, who does what any loving man would do and says “I like the color.” (Bad move).
Days pass. The wife describes the sunlit living area using terms more fit for an unlit medieval dungeon. The husband concedes. Money is spent. Five gallon buckets of paint are carried effortlessly into the home. ALAS! The color was mixed improperly. Back to the store. Five gallon buckets are effortlessly carried again! And then, they get to work.
This story is obviously dramatized but it does “paint” a rather accurate picture of the trials of this past weekend. My wife, however, 33 weeks pregnant and all, was down on her knees painting trim and taping corners at a faster pace than I was. She was motivated to welcome her son into a warm home instead of a medieval dungeon.
By the end of the weekend we had completed both bedrooms. I must say they do look infinitely better than they did before. The credit goes to my wife’s aesthetic eye. She teaches art and frequently paints on canvases. Who was I to doubt her?
Despite the sore body, the sweat, the feeling that a “weekend” didn’t actually exist, and the other struggles we woke up on Monday morning to our home. Cillian kicked wildly when my wife first walked into his finished room. Perhaps they share the same taste in color.
At any rate, Father’s Day was not totally lost. I was treated to two new polo shirts and some fried chicken after a long day of working. Not a bad day at all. Certainly more memorable than not doing the work. I hope my son appreciates the work that went into his room. Somehow I know he will.