Football...

Connor,

So your mommy wrote you an awfully sweet note last night that kind of caught everyone up on how you are doing and where you are headed. You have been making some serious progress lately and you are looking more and more like the little boy that we got to know before you went in for your big heart surgery. There was a brief period last night when you even sat, wide-eyed and happy, for a while and let mommy play with your curly hair.

Then mommy went to make you a milkshake and daddy got a turn to play with you and you decided it was time to flip out and go through your best impersonation of a tomato trying to make itself explode. Thanks buddy. But we did get you changed and cleaned up and calmed down and you went to sleep pretty early so that mommy and daddy could go try to get some sleep too. And sleep we kind of did. I only say kind of because I had lots and lots of dreams about you coming home and daddy trying to figure out what goes where and when to do what and I wasn't very good at it in my dreams. I will be better when get to game time though, I promise.

Now today I want to talk to you about something VERY VERY important. This is probably going to be a major part of your life as you grow up and maybe even once you are a grown up yourself so you better pay attention. Today we are going to talk a little bit about football. That is your daddy's favorite sport and it has been, among other things, a lifeline that your mommy and daddy have clung to the last five weeks here in the hospital (by the way happy five week birthday son).

You see Connor, football has been the one and only constant for your mommy and I over the last five weeks. Every single other piece of our lives has been flipped upside down or turned backwards or taken away from us entirely. That isn't to say that we don't still have a lot of the same things we had six weeks ago, like great friends and loving family and each other, but all of those things have been taken and shaken up. Our schedules are inside out, we only get to see our friends and family at certain times and almost always here at the hospital, and even the time mommy and daddy spend together (and not talking about hospital related stuff) is pretty limited.

So that leaves us this ritual of sorts, something that your mommy and I have had in common since we met each other many many years ago. That ritual is football. Saturdays and Sundays in the fall we devote a portion (some weekends its more than others) of our time to this game that represents happiness and frivolity for mommy and I. The outcome of the games doesn't actually affect our lives in anyway but the games themselves give us a window of time when we are free to get excited, or sad if you are a Bengals fan lately, and act like nothing in the world is wrong.

This ritual of football takes many forms and can sometimes run from sun up on Saturday to sun down on Sunday. Sometimes we sit quietly in your room and silently cheer for the small people running around on the blurry screen hanging over your sink. Sometimes we watch on our laptop or our phones as fantasy points (this is an explanation for another day, and another game that keeps our family together in a way) move up and down as our favorite players and teams do great things out on the field. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get to watch the games with our friends and/or family and cheer collectively when we see something great.

It is still a game though. One that has touched your daddy's life in a multitude of ways and will forever be one of my great loves. Now I have two that have leaped ahead of football on his list of loves, you and mommy of course, but it is still there and it still represents a happiness in life that can help to get me through some of the hardest times. And over these last 5 weeks it was these games that kept your mommy and daddy attached to the real world and things like days of the week or even months of the year. Those games on Saturdays and Sundays kept us grounded and gave us something we desperately needed, an attachment to normal life, the life we will all head back to when the doctors tell us you are good and ready.

So until that happens we will continue to watch those games and live our rituals (like the burnt orange shirt daddy has on right now or the bright green Irish shirt mommy has on) and share those with you as we begin our lives together. To help with this daddy went out and bought you something, I think its the first gift that your daddy has bought especially for you since you showed up 5 weeks ago today. This is my gift to you Connor, one that I hope will help you through life just like it has helped daddy all these years.

Thank you for sharing this with me son. 

I love you Connor.

- Daddy