GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part thirty-four))

(since two moms have called me out already (one of them, hannah and caroline's own) on the worry that the ultimate sentiment of this post may be lost in the first few paragraphs that seem to imply that girls, and therefore MY girls, are somehow second-rate, i am going to do something that i never do. edit myself. or rather, retroactively qualify a post in the hopes that, in ten or however many years down the line the first of my girls find or are given this website as my gift to them, the thirty-fourth installment of my ode within an ode to them does not make them think that i was somehow disappointed with their presence in my life.

what the below "digress"ion touches on is something that those that have known me for any period of time already were aware of. before we had hannah, i was very much infatuated with being the father to a son. not having any clue as to what, exactly, i wanted out of a boy other than to coach him in little league, hearing that hannah would be a girl was not a shock nor disappointment at all. i figured she would be the first of many children, and many of my friends and family told me they thought that a girl was exactly what i needed. and they were right. it took all of five seconds for me to tell sarah that i felt "my heart grow to make room" for her. since those first moments, she has had and will always have me wrapped around her finger. she can be infuriating of course. but i love her with every ounce of me and would give my life to make sure she had every chance at hers.

caroline is no different with one exception. the girls' mommy can attest to my tangible feeling of disappointment after we were told that caroline was a girl. sarah felt like things were different with the second pregnancy. she felt like she was having a boy. i got excited. "seth" would be here before we knew it! i wasn't so far behind kiker and andy that we wouldn't one day overlap at the ballpark. the boy would balance out the girl. the boy would annoy the girl. the boy would protect my dear, sweet hannah when they were both old enough to use each other in that fashion. it would be perfect. and then, of course, history wrote that we would have our second girl. the "1A" to my "1" in hannah. the (s) that would be added to "my muse" on the blog. the girl that is much more "like" me than hannah. the second girl that has me in every way. the second girl for whom i would give my life to make sure she had every chance at hers.

what you (and you, my girls) will read below is my always weak attempt at humor poking fun at what has now become a running joke within my circle of friends. that being that i wasn't rolling in the dirt or eating enough meat or doing something with a wrench enough to make sure my part of their creation was going to turn them out to be a dude. athletically, is turning out to be "the next mia hamm" or "the next serena williams" a dis? i should hope not. but, if the below is read as their being the next "any girl" would rank them as being of less worth than "any boy", well, i hope you (and you, my girls) know me well enough to know that's not the case.

by the time my girls end up reading this, they'll probably have a pretty good idea that their dad is stupid. and not beyond cracking jokes at their expense. and not beyond starting a blog that hopes to one day convey how much i have loved them ever since i have known OF them in a way that this stupid "boy" will never be able to say out loud.

thanks, sarah and kathy. who knows how much credit i would actually give you if you were guys. ;)

and now, back to the post...

i've held back on this post for a week longer than i usually would, because i wanted it to have a little more time to marinate. a week ago thursday, our six year-old hannah scored her first goal in what was her second ever soccer game.

that fact, in and of itself, was cause for celebration. much has been made and many times i have whined about my lack of ability in producing a boy. twice my seed has been planted. twice the fruit that harvested was born with nary a twig and most definitely no berries. does this make me less of a man? of course it does! if i was more of a man, like kiker or andy or aaron or every other buddy that i have who has stumbled into a son, i would make a boy. it's just as simple and genetically a fact as that. it has been written through my own actions and experiences that i am not worthy of offspring that might carry forward my name and legacy. my hands are not rough from work outdoors. in fact, i have been told they are quite smooth, much the same as a comely young lady's. i do not kill innocent creatures with guns. i do not wrestle. i do not fight. i do not carry a sword. i do not fancy myself a mixed martial artist. i now suck at sports. i am pretty sure i am going blind in at least one of my eyes. my elbows hurt (really??? my freaking elbows?). i bitch about headaches and neckaches and cancer all the time. i do not plumb, nor work with electricity. i can barely put gas in my car. i don't like bad smelling things. i would more than rather look for help around my house in a phonebook versus my lacking fortitude for fix-it-ness. i mean, look at this list!!! for god sakes, i am a WOMAN. when the queen mother earth blessed me and sarah with children, i had bound and determined the gender-specific fates of our offspring well before our very awkward first dance. it seems to be that i am, quite literally, a pansy.

i digress.

what the above does illustrate, though, is that i was never going to have a boy to rear. to pitch to. to teach how to swing a bat. to bodyslam. to bloody his nose. to race down hotel room halls in sockfeet. i just wasn't. so, when it comes to living vicariously through my children the athletic exploits i was never able to accomplish myself, the best i was going to be able to hope for was the next mia hamm or serena williams (without the sass). neither of those were bound to happen either, but they are girls and i have girls. it was going to be my only shot.

future-back to a week ago thursday. hannah's second soccer game. the ball squirts away from the bunch in the direction of the goal her team is scoring on, she touches it once with her right foot, swings every so mildly-wildly at the ball with her left, she makes solid-enough contact, and wouldn't you know it??? she scores!!! we are taping at the time and catch it all. i must have watched the video a hundred times over the last ten days. you can hear how excited i am. a proud daddy, indeed.

after several viewings and several days worth of reflection, though, it is no longer the goal, itself, that sticks out to me. during the last five to ten seconds of the tape, i catch a glimpse of how happy hannah is post-goal. she isn't really sure how to celebrate, so she goes over to her closest friend on the team and smiles with her. her coach leans over and gives her five, and then comes the most fantas-mic part. she loses herself for just a couple of seconds with a smile as wide as the sea fitting her face perfectly. she hops and skips elegantly towards the middle of the field, the toe of one of her cleats scraping very gracefully and purposefully across the top of the grass. in the moment, she seems utterly content. wonderful and happy. proud. of herself, which she had and has every right to be.

as that moment has baked in my brain the last several days, it has served me with many questions and one true answer. the questions have been ranging from "did she mean to do that?" to "what about that goal on that day and in that game made her react in such a happy way?" what forces in her life and what influences from me and her mother and television and school and daycare and church and friends and family led to, in that moment, the smile and the hop and the skip?

the one true answer is that i don't really know, because i am sure it is a combination of all of those influences, some amalgamation of hannah marie o'kelley's life that is already building a construct of who she is and what make her tick. what brings her joy. why she will ever be sad.

the only hope i can have, as her father, is to try and build her up through her daily routines and out of the ordinary experiences more and more chances for her to feel the euphoria that she so obviously exhibited after she scored her first goal in her second ever soccer game.

chances are, just like any solid to spectacular baseball player makes 7 outs for every 10 plate appearances, i will fail masterfully at being a father. what will be important will be what i make out of the teaching and/or celebration opportunities i am given, grooved down the middle of the plate if you will. being mindful of her likes and dislikes, emotions and anxieties, good moods and bad, maybe occasionally i'll be able to figuratively see the ball coming out of the pitcher of life's hand and put her in a position to be everything that she sees herself wanting to be.

until she is old enough to figure those things out for herself, that's all a mommy and daddy can really do, right? try to actively love very hard and put their children in as many opportunities to excel and be happy as we possibly can. to exaggerate every victory and downplay every defeat in an effort to balance their life in such a way that they have a fair and fighting chance when we hand over their keys to their adult world.

when we later watch this video with hannah, it won't be the goal that we celebrate nearly as much as the smile on her face. we'll ask her what made her so happy and help her understand "the why".

that's all we can really do, right?