The House that Jack built

Being a dad means cutting a son’s hair at 9:30 at night and cleaning up the mess while the boy is in the shower because the boy wants to look good the next day for school.

Being a dad means explaining “WHY” girls are the way they are to his sons and not trying to excuse their behavior.

Being a dad means picking up every available empty soda bottle and collecting them for the extra money because his two little ones want to play baseball this year, it’s gonna cost $180.

Being a dad means getting up early on a Sunday morning before church and going to the corner store market for a gallon of milk before the boys get up, so they’ll have something other than water to pour on their cereal.

Being a dad means you work ungodly hours to pay for the mortgage on the house in the community that the boys want to keep living in.

Being a dad means you see the hairs you missed on that late night haircut and you trim them before the boy gets made fun of at school.

Being a dad means an extra trip to a different mall so the boy can spend his birthday money at a “Tastey” store full of darkness, loud music and large posters of partially clad super skinny models.

Being a dad means driving 200+ miles to pick up a couple of new puppies to replace the one that had to be put to sleep.

Being a dad means making the tough decision to put the ailing dog to sleep.

Being a dad means you worry about how to pay for the new shoes that are needed because the bottoms of the old ones are coming off.

Being a dad means you let your boy borrow your coat when he wants to walk the girl out to her car… and his shoes too.

Being a dad means taking the time to teach the boy how to put together (PROPERLY) a shelving unit in order to keep the boys room clean.

Being a dad means sacrificing a meal or two in order so that the boys don’t have to.

Being a dad means driving in the cold, snowy night, to pick up the boy from the girl’s house.

Being a dad means taking videos of special events, like sports.

Being a dad means cleaning up after the puppies make a mess on the floor while they are being potty trained.

Being a dad means cleaning the kitchen when he didn’t mess it up.

Being a dad means listening to two teenagers gripe and complain about each other.

Being a dad means he stays on top of those boys and their grades.

Being a dad means missing out on television shows he really wants to watch in order to let a 9 year old accomplish something on a video game system that he’s been wanting to beat for a REALLY LONG TIME…

Being a dad means you try to give some sort of insight as to why those friends are saying and doing those things when it hurts your teenager so deeply.

Being a dad means you give up your favorite flashlight because one of the boys doesn’t have one for flashlight tag.

Being a dad means you steal the batteries from the remote in order to make the new toy work (because sometimes as a dad, you forget to read that ‘batteries are not included’)

Being a dad means you give up your laptop so that the report can be finished.

Being a dad means you lose control of the remote when cartoons have to be watched.

Being a dad means you get the dirty fork for dinner because all of the clean ones are being used by everyone else.

Being a dad means getting up to help a little boy work through the fear of a vivid nightmare in the dark of night.

Being a dad means getting the last glass of soda and finding out it’s flat and nothing but syrup.

Bring a dad means eating the burnt steak because no one likes them THAT well done.


Being a dad means all that and so much more…
But what it means to me is something that I just can’t put into words.