following the beat of your own drummer (taylor swift. ugh.)

i'm not sure that i really had a plan going into fatherhood. sure, i wanted my kids to be smart and beautiful and athletic and thin and have all the same interests as me. i think i expected them, by age 3 or so, to be miniature representations of the best parts of me, that they would love the sox and alabama and good music and dreamland ribs and Jesus. but i never made and plans on how to get from tiny little lumps of potential to all-i-hoped-they-would-be. i bring this up because i sit here typing with taylor swift playing in the background, and i didn't put it on.

kate is still young, so she has all the trappings of toddlerhood, including viewing her parents as supremely awesome. drew is older, but either because he is a boy or whatever, he and i share much in common (baseball perhaps the biggest). abbey, on the other hand, is at that age where she is forging her own identity, and much of it feels like an attempt to be the opposite of her parents. she doesn't much care for the Game, she hates everything we buy her, and her musical tastes are being influenced more by her friends (who don't have near the ear for quality that i do).

and none of this is bad, necessarily, but i guess it is just reminding me that, as much as i want to them to stay close to us always, parenting is the art of letting go. from the moment their lungs expanded, i have been in a process of preparing them to leave. and the more prepared they are when they do, the better i will have performed my duties. i know that they will always be my children, but one day it will be different. they will be on many levels disconnected from me and april, and we will have to trust that we did not botch things up too badly. sometimes, i worry about this, but sometimes, i am thrilled at the possibility of all that they can become.

i know the day that the original baby-girl leaves for good is many years off, but i feel like the first steps toward that day have already been made. and once the process begins, it is impossible to stop.

freakin' taylor swift.