The father of my children

Sometimes it just smacks me in the face.

This morning Aleks took the girls upstairs to get dressed and ready for the day, while I finished my coffee and read a blog.

Before which, he had fixed breakfast for the kids and prepped tonight's meat in the sous vide as I came in the door from my workout.

Pretty great huh?

As the gang trouped up stairs, there was a bit of a scuffle and I heard Aleks say:

Girls come here. Come here please. Ruby please come here.

Listen, this is a handrail and it's only for holding onto. We don't pull on it. You know why? See this little screw? That the only thing that holds it to the wall and if we pull on it, it could break.

Well, hello.

Smacked right upside the head.

What patience and loving correction. And teaching too.

I can just imagine, if Aleks was a different man, how he could have snapped at the girls, without explaining why they shouldn't pull on the handrail, or worse yet, given them a smack.

Instead he chose to be kind and patient and gracious.

The other day Maia was being a dog as we were getting ready for bed. It had been a somewhat chilly day and we were all figuring out what pajamas the girls were going to wear.

Maia said that since she was a dog and dogs didn't wear clothes, she was going to sleep naked.

By bedtime, I'm lucky if I've got any patience left and I wasn't in the mood for persuading anyone to do anything much less reason with a dog.

Aleks joined us and easy as pie said:

You know Maia, there are really small dogs that sometimes wear clothes, like shirts. Could I get you a shirt doggy?

To which Maia responded, "sure!"

I didn't know what kind of father Aleks would be when I married him. I did know that I could be myself when I was with him and that I greatly admired and appreciated his patience.

Those same qualities have translated into his parenting and not only does it make my job as a parent easier, my girls are thriving from having such a loving male figure in their lives.

Just thought I'd let the world know how much I appreciate him!