The Digital Dad

Fatherhood is great. Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different. There is nothing in the whole wide world like being a dad. Mom’s are cool, too. Obviously. But Dad’s are the heroes. We scare away the ghosts. We squish the spiders. We get Nerf darts down from the tippy top shelf. (Let’s see Mom get those down.) There’s nothing Dad’s can’t do. We are immovable, unbeatable, eternal. We are the defenders of the realm, protectors of her people. But we can’t always be everywhere. The one major place we can never help our children is in their dreams. And let me tell you, for a Dad, for a real spider-squishin’, ghost-scarin’, tippy-top-shelf-gettin’ save-the-day kind of dad there’s nothing that breaks my heart any more than bad dreams. But the term “bad” can often be a matter of perception.
Liam, now 3 and a half, awoke Sunday morning before sunrise with a scream the likes of which would melt the flesh from your bones. And when this kid wails, banshees take notes. Missy was already at work and I was still in the early morning, haven’t had my coffee haze, the kind of blur that ensures you’ll always fall face first down the stairs if you’re required to move in any form of urgency, like, say if your 3 and a half year old banshee is startled from sleep with a nightmare. So there I am, ankles over ears at the bottom of the stairs with the Li’l Tike version of Tina Turner bellowing to the belfry. I managed to make it to his bedside just as he was really coming around and scooped him up for a big Daddy-saves-the-day kind of hug, knowing full well I hadn’t bested the stairwell, much less any ethereal Bogeymen. But nevertheless, Daddy was there and that made it all better.
As I hugged him close and rocked him I told him everything would be all right and asked if he wanted to tell me about his nightmare. It often helps him recover to talk it out. Through sobs and gasps he began his tale of darkness and woe, of evil and all its faces. He began…
“There was a sandwich.”
“There was a sandwich?” I replied, trying full well now to stifle a giggle.
“Yeah, there was a sandwich. And there was jelly and there was butter.”
It’s at this point I’m truly grateful his head is buried in my shoulder. I don’t think I could have explained my expression to him. After all, he was truly mortified… by a sandwich.
“What else, buddy? What was the sandwich doing?”
I’m no longer trying to help soothe his pain. (So shoot me.) Now I’m just prodding for material.
“The baby took a bath. He was in the basket and took a bath.”
“The baby? Was the baby ok?”
“Yeah, the baby was ok. He was takin’ a bath.”
“Well, ok, then, I’m glad the baby was ok. It was just a dream”
“Yeah, I had a bad dream… and there was a sandwich.”
I believe in my heart of heart’s for the rest of eternity I may face trials and tribulations far beyond what mortal man has dared dream but I shall never, ever come as close to doom and destruction as my 3 year old the night he faced off with a sandwich.