Dear Dad, Love Dominic

Dear Dad,

Happy first Father’s Day! It’s too bad that you’re in Laos and I’m in Australia on this day, but when we were up together this morning at 3am Mum told me you had to go back to Laos in September to work because there are lots of mothers there who don’t get enough to eat and have trouble producing enough milk to feed their babies. She sounded really sad when she said it – like she might cry. I think she often thinks of sad things when she’s feeding me alone in the dark. Why is that?

Anyway, I miss you. I mean, Mum is great – all soft and squishy and she just smells so delicious with all that warm milk flowing underneath her skin, like a giant custard tart, don’t you think? But even a very little man cannot live by milk alone, and I was getting used to you and me having special times together. Mum’s not nearly as happy to see my eyes wide open at 5AM as you are, and I had all sorts of special things planned for us to celebrate this first Fathers Day. For example, I was going to wait until right after you undid my diaper and then do a giant poo all over the change table. Good times. And when you were holding me one-armed against your shoulder I was going to throw my head back and go all rigid– that’s always good for giving Mum a mini heart attack. She is afraid you’ll drop me one of these days but I know you won’t. Ever since I’ve been born Mum’s been afraid of all sorts of new things. Why is that?

Mum misses you too. While I was having my breakfast this morning she was talking about all the things you’ve been doing for her this last three weeks that she’s going to have to do herself now – like all the laundry, my daytime diaper changes, making breakfast, sterilizing the breast pump, and following up on paperwork. I wanted to tell her that she should be grateful that she’s not living in the 1800’s in a sod house on the Missouri prairies because then she’d have to do all that laundry by hand and I can bet you’d have been too busy farming to help her with it, much less bring her raisin toast and vitamins in the morning. But I had my mouth full, and I’ve been told it’s not polite to speak whilst eating.

Anyway, I thought you’d be glad to know that Mum has pretty much changed her mind about not coming back to Laos with you in October. She says that being in Laos with you is narrowly beating out being in Australia without you. I’ll keep you posted if things change on that front but I hope they don’t, as I’m really looking forward to meeting Zulu. Grandad’s horrified at the thought of you letting “that dog” come near me. Mum’s tried to tell him that she’ll be very careful with me around him, and that this is a dog whose mouth is so gentle that he can carry a baby chicken for two blocks and not kill it. Grandad countered by pointing out that the reason Zulu was carrying the baby chicken in the first place was that he grabbed it during a morning run when he was supposed to be following Mike’s bike and then scurried home with it still in his mouth the instant he knew he was in trouble. I’m not worried though, I’m a lot bigger than a baby chicken. Mum says I’m such a pork chop that holding me makes her back hurt, so that little dog doesn’t stand a chance of carrying me off anywhere.

It’s soon time for me to eat again and I don’t see Mum anywhere around here. I have no idea where she is – maybe doing those many loads of laundry she was talking about – so I’m going to have to sign off so that I can work myself up to yelling for her to come fetch me. I hope you have a great Father’s Day, even though we’re not together. Mum tells me all the time that I have the best Dad in the whole wide world, but I don’t need her to tell me that. That one is obvious.

Can’t wait to see you in a month.

I love you,

Dominic