Father’s Day 2020 | Atlanta Child Photographer
As I’m sure you know, this past Sunday was Father’s Day. A day to recognize and celebrate all of the wonderful fathers in your life. Even though I adore fathers, especially photographing fathers with their children, we’re not really big on the actual celebration. Normally what I do is give my husband a card and perhaps doing something nice for him like bake his favorite dessert or cook his favorite meal. Maybe I’ll even give him a nice massage or something. For my dad, I’ll usually give him a call and we have a wonderful conversation. My bonus dad is not really a phone talker, so we communicate via text. Then, there are my brothers. I usually text them because both are very busy. It’s not that they aren’t worth celebrating but I try my best as often as I can, to show them that they are loved and appreciated. Why pick one preselected day out of an entire year to show someone they are special when you can do it way more often than that? I have to try to find some images of my bonus dad. It has been a minute since I’ve photographed him. Below are my dad, my husband, and my two brothers.
This Father’s Day, being in quarantine and all, we didn’t do much. We spent the weekend installing a new backsplash in the kitchen and my husband and son built a pc together. I love when they have projects that they can bond with.
Lately, my husband has been having our son help with various projects. Previously, they built a new enclosure for our mailbox. Being home all of the time has gotten my husband into “project overdrive” and it allows him to spend more time with our son.
I like that they’ve been spending more time together. It’s great to see them forging a bond. For most of our son’s life, he has spent most of his time with me. My husband always wanted children but he’s never really had to take care of children. When I was a tween and teen, I had to look after my younger sisters quite a bit. I was used to it. I’ve held babies before, changed diapers, and more. He had done none of that. To be honest, prior to our son being born, he had never held a baby. Before I got pregnant, I made him promise to hold his child and hold him he did. He was so proud and happy in this picture. The nurse was nice enough to capture this image for us.
Even though my husband is a wonderful man, I still worried about having to do EVERYTHING when it came to our son. He said he would pitch in and he did, even if he got a late start. What I mean by that is, trying to get him to change a diaper took longer than it should have. He kept telling me he had to watch me do it a few more times before he would do it. Uuuuh, it’s not rocket science. After about the third or fourth time of him telling me that, I just made him do it. To be fair, he, like some men, wasn’t comfortable with babies. He thought he might break him but I reassured him that he wouldn’t. Actually, if I could have popped out a three-year-old he would have been extremely satisfied.
Anyway, he has grown into his role as a father. In fact, he got some practice before I even got pregnant. He was a Big Brother for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization. I believe his little was eight when he was assigned. Just the sweetest kid. They had so much fun together, which seemed to really kick his desire for a child into high gear. I was the only thing holding him back. At the time, I really didn’t want children. I know, it’s weird. I love children but didn’t want any of my own. Being an aunt was one of my favorite roles but that is a story for another time. Once our son was born, Steve was in it for the long haul. The only thing he really hated doing was taking E with him when he was a baby. He abhorred the diaper bag. When E turned three, we signed him up for soccer. Steve had never played soccer a day in his life and knew nothing about it. Since the kids were three-years-old, they didn’t know anything either, so the rules were very rudimentary. We even signed him up for Taekwondo but of course, he was not a teacher for that. After soccer came basketball and baseball. Both sports Steve was the coach. He had played both sports as well, so when he had to actually know the rules, he did. Later on, he would be like me, a spectator when E ran track and played tennis. He also helped E with his submission videos for acceptance into his prestigious public high school and for the technology fair, which he won first place for. Currently, he’s helping E try to get his learner’s permit.
It has been a blessing to see them grow together. I’m glad that they have gotten to know each other. When I was a child, my parents divorced and I didn’t really get to know my dad until I was in college. I saw him and spent time with him before that but I really didn’t know him. That too is a story for another time. Below are a few images of their times together that I wanted to share. To all those fathers out there, I hope that your Father’s Day was wonderful and showed you how special you are to your families.
The last picture tickled all of us. They had inadvertently dressed alike one day, so of course, we had to take a picture of it.
“A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be.” ~ Frank A. Clark
