Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Stefan Lanfer is a Boston-based dad of two, playwright, and foundation strategy guy.  He blogs about “the big mysteries revealed in the small moments” of fatherhood at dadtoday.com, and about finding time and ways to hang in there with the work you are most passionate about, even when there is no time, and when there seems to be no way at The Write Map.   Lanfer is the author of The Faith of a Child and Other Stories of Becoming and Being Dad – a must read for any dad-to-be freaking out about the unknowns to come. 

Love at the White Board 

by Stefan Lanfer

When I drop James off at school in the mornings, we lock the bike trailer to a black iron fence in the back, take off his red helmet, and unload his new blue backpack with “JAMES” stitched in white. We walk alongside the red brick building, and peer into his classroom through the windows along the drive. “There’s Luke!” he says. “There’s Malia!” sounding surprised and delighted every time. 

Inside, we hang his backpack on the hook in his cubby, take off his jacket – which is now appearing more routinely on these cool, fall mornings. Then we visit the little white board – right at James’ level, right outside his classroom. 

He picks up the dry erase marker, and waits for me to read the question of the day. 

The other morning, it read, “Good morning, friends! Today we have gym class with Jenn. What makes your family special?” 

“What makes our family special, James?” I asked. 

“We have Maya,” he said, without missing a beat. 

Wow, I thought.  Wow.  You’re right.  She does make us special, James. 

These days, I write on the board first – a letter, or a whole word.  Then I watch with wonder as my son, who has only ever drawn squiggly storm, after storm, after storm, now studies each line, and slowly but surely copies what he sees. 

On that morning, I wrote M-A-Y-A for him. And as he painstakingly worked to replicate the letters, my heart melted to mush.  And as it did I thought, of all the gifts of time, and attention, and care, and love we want to give our kids through the years, so few gifts will ever come close to the gift they have of each other. 

Case in point - making us special in the wide mouth bass aisle, Home Depot, West Roxbury, MA

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