I see you, your eyes lighting up as you are told that you are going to be a daddy. I also see that nervousness flash through your face as it all too quickly changes… It changes to a new expression that I’ve never seen before… Because it is the look of a different man.

I see you, hustling through the aisles of the grocery store, every day,  making sure your baby-mama eats healthy and fresh and avoiding the poultry section like the plague because I just “can’t stand it’s God forsaken smell”. You don’t argue when I don’t want to eat what you’ve cooked, and get up in the middle of your meal to fix me something else. And when I breakdown because the shawarma place ran out of beef shawarma, you dutifully drive to another shawarma joint without making me feel like a crazy lady.

I see you, exhausted after a long day’s work… ready to drop on the couch for a night of relaxation. Instead, you wipe the tiredness from your eyes and you cook for us, clean and do the million little tasks that make our little household function. Every night you say, let’s go to bed a little early… And I do, but you finally drag yourself to bed at one in the morning…

I see you, even when you go stone faced because you are worrying and struggling when you see me in pain that you are not able to make go away. You hold my hand, offer me your shoulder, or sit in silence, holding me as I go through whatever it is that I need to go through.

I see you, looking at the swell in my belly and I see you whispering little messages to your child. You have hopes, you have dreams, and I know you want to give this baby the best possible life.

I see you, and I thank you for shattering every expectation of what I wanted you to be as a partner in this chapter of my life; and exceeding them a million times over for me, for the baby and for us.

I love you.

❤️