One year ago today

One year ago today was Mother's Day and Allison's graduation day. We had asked Tobin to hold off a couple of days since we had company in town for graduation. I had a state playoff baseball game looming on Tuesday the 16th. Allison was having more frequent contractions by Monday. I won't speak for Allison about how she was feeling this time last year. I can just speak for myself. I was really nervous. I was excited, too, but nervous was my state most often.

My pulse rate would jump anytime my phone would ring or Allison would ask for something. Even if she just wanted a drink of water, by the time she had finished her question I had run through a number of scenarios up to and including the helpful tips for emergency home delivery that we had learned at childbirthing classes. While my lips were saying that I would be glad to get water, my brain was trying to figure out which towels it would be okay to use in delivering Tobin if he decided to rush out before we could get to the hospital. Would Allison care if I used certain towels--and would it be best to use the nicer towels to welcome him or the not-so-nice ones so we could throw them out with no reservation? Now that I think of it, that was about the time I began to hone my ability to worry and fret at warp speed. Now I can hear Tobin cry from the next room and in less than three seconds have two routes in mind [allowing for traffic] to the nearest Emergency Room or Urgent Care Center, depending on my personal triage assessment.

I'll probably be awash in reflection and memories this week, but May 14th was a big day in my mind last year, and was the first day of the week that Tobin was born. He's asleep now. We spent the afternoon at the dog park with Hannah then crawling around the house toppling things until Mom got home. I had no idea how much I would love being a dad, but I'm trying to soak up every moment of it I can now.