If you’ve been following this blog for a while now you’ll note that there has been one major change over the past number of years to have taken place that has massively altered my day to day fatherhood: moving closer to family. For a number of years my family was quite literally hours and hours away from any family that might want to visit. As a consequence there were no random drop-ins by our families. There were no unplanned visits (in fact, there were very few visits at all because of the distance). So what happened? Well, for one, our son wasn’t able to bond with his aunts and uncles and grandparents as well as we would have liked (and, of course, they would have really liked to bond with him better too). Upon moving back all of this changed. I realized this when our son started asking for the “uncle move.”
What is an “uncle move?” Well, this particular move (created by this particular uncle) involved our son sitting on his shoulders while he prompted our son to “let go” and fall backwards while the wonderful uncle held onto his feet. Nothing particularly complex or dangerous, but our son was quite afraid at the beginning: “let go?” Well, he did and he laughed and he had fun and he asked (incessantly) for the “uncle move.” Over and over again. And it wasn’t until his uncle had landed a job out of town, weeks later, that I realized he really did have a strong bond with the family we were away from for so long, because he asked for the “uncle move” even in that uncle’s long absences. And when that uncle visited again our son recognized that uncle by name and excitedly asked for the “uncle move” again. It’s official: our son has a family who loves him — and he loves them back.