Pass the Anti-venom, Please

This is Daddio again.

When Toast and I married, I knew I had found a partner for life.  She is such a wonderful wife and off the scale as a mommy.

When we were still a couple that could put 0 in the children category on forms, I knew I was the most important person in her life and her in mine.  If, say, we were hiking in the woods with her friends or family and all of us simultaneously were bitten by rattlesnakes (just go with the story with me, please no comments with the actuarial odds of 20 simultaneous snake bites) I knew I was going to get the anti-venom first.  Maybe this makes for an odd visual, but I knew Melissa loved me above all else.

Then, like a guy with a cheap ticket on United, I got bumped.  No ceremony, no sorry sir, just one day I was second in line.  It was one fall day, a Saturday about 3:00 that it happened.  Beaner joined us.  No words were spoken, I just knew from the look on Toasts face that I was second.  I better hope for two vials of anti-venom.

Second is a great place to be

Immediately after the birth, I stood midway between Toast and Beaner, about five feet from each.  Beaner was 10 seconds old and I was deciding between my wife and my daughter.  With a smile and nod from Toast I was soon at Beaner’s side.  Toast was telling me, from that point forward, my role as a father was more important than as a husband.

Then one winter day I woke up in second and went to bed in third place. Cheekers had arrived and it was a landslide, I wasn't even in the photo at the finish line.

Third is a great place to be.

If you would have told me a few years ago that being third in my wife's eye was acceptable, I think I would have laughed.  Instead of being jealous or hurt or disappointed -- I'm elated.  To be able to love something as pure and, frankly as selfish, as a child is such a wonderful feeling.  How odd it is to try to explain to someone that being demoted was one of the best things to happen in your life, but it is so true.  I know Toast didn't "make room" for the girls by moving me aside.  That space in her life, in her heart, never existed before.  I matter just as much, probably more than before the girls.  It's just that there is so much more of Mommy to give to us all.

Third is a great place to be.

--Daddio