Fittingly, Harper celebrated her fifth birthday this year with five parties spread out over the month. She’s a remarkable girl, full of vim and vigor. We’re lucky to have her and if you’ve had the good fortune to spend time with her you’re better for it.
“This is the best day of my life”
Harper, on her birthday.
As a kid the start of the school year was usually a terrible thing. As a parent, I have a little more appreciation for the benefits our entire family enjoys with the restart of the educational calendar.
Though the space and time we enjoy in the summertime is always a blessing, there’s some magical about the imposed schedule schooling provides. To boot we get to enjoy the delight our children still experience in seeing friends again, new teachers and the still-fun experience of school.
This year Sebastian heads back to Midway for second grade while Harper and Arden remain at Northland for Kindergarten and the start of preschool. Here’s to hoping this year is every bit as remarkable for our kids as the last years have been.
It’s impossible to have a low-key birthday when you have four young children. Fortunately for me, this is as low-key as I ever want life to be.
Eight years ago today Jenn and I were wed. Through the great kindness of Jenn’s extended family, we were able to celebrate alone with a brief retreat to the Postcard Inn at St Pete Beach. It’s down the street from the Don Cesar, where we stayed last year. But in other regards it is worlds apart from the Don.
We’ve had a good year for many reasons including Augustin’s birth and our family trip to Hawai’i. I continue to be amazed at just how lucky I am to have married Jenn and how blessed we’ve been by God over these eight year. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
In the meantime pencil in time to make the Postcard Inn in your future. It’s one of the funnest hotels we’ve stayed at in Florida. It’s on the beach, has a great BBQ restaurant onsite and has a Florida resident discount to lower their already reasonable prices. Just beware if you go on the weekend that the poolside turns into some sort of Jersey shore 10-year-reunion.
What would Father’s Day be without dads? Lucky me I got to spend time on Thursday with my dad and granddad, both of whom I see less than I’d like because of the distance between our respective homes.
Owing to some fortunate scheduling all three families ended up at my grandparents’ for dinner on Thursday. So though it wasn’t technically Father’s Day, we took advantage of our same-spaceness to celebrate.
My kids are lucky to get such great men in their lives. We don’t get to spend that much time all together, so my kids will never know my dad or granddad as well as I do. Then again, it’s hard to know me without knowing those two men in some respects. They both did so much to shape me as a man and as a father. I’m certain my kids encounter them both through their legacies apparent in my life every day.
That’s what Father’s Day is really all about. You love your kids and raise them as best as you can. You sacrifice and model what it means to be a Godly man. If you’re lucky one day your sons will grow up to be good men and your daughters will grow up knowing what a good man looks like.
So happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! If you’re really lucky maybe you’ll even get a happy fathers’ day like I did.
In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck – and, of course, courage.
-Bill Cosby
It’s hard to know what a young child thinks of a new family member. Our two-year-old, Arden, is very articulate for a toddler but even so she doesn’t really have the capacity to convey subtle emotion. At least, not verbally. So it’s impossible for us to truly know what she’s thinking about Augustin’s entry into her life.
On Monday she had the camera for a few minutes. Even though we can’t know what she’s thinking, for those few minutes we had a chance to see the world she was seeing. The first photo is Arden at work, surveying the scene. In sum she took thirty photos, most of which were blurry or crooked or off on focus. But the second photograph below is the shot she snapped of her new baby brother and her beloved mom.
At 3a this morning, Jenn’s water broke. At 5:30, Augustin Leander Cole Clark wriggled his way into the world. Though Harper cried at the reality of another brother, we’re all now delighted at this newest addition to our family.
8 pounds, 8 ounces and 20 inches of awesome makes Augustin the shortest and second-lightest of our children. He looks like Arden did when she was born, with less cheeks. (That may not mean that much since Arden was 90% cheeks at birth.)
Welcome to the world Augustin!
