What "Father" means to us.

• Time. More than anything else, here in our family, "Father" means time. Brian has dedicated his weekends, evenings, nights and mornings to his role as Maia's father. He has given up many of his before-baby hobbies (remember radio-controlled airplanes? Disc golf? Video games?) in the interest in the accumulation of minutes, hours, and days with his daughter.
  
• Reflection. Brian really thinks about the meaning of his role, and the fundamental importance of his choices. He reads books about discipline, toddler behavior, baby sleep, and parenting philosophy. He asks himself the question "Why am I doing what I'm doing, and what message does it send to my daughter and my family?"
• Humor. No one can get Maia to giggle the way Brian can. He just gets her sense of humor, and understands how much she loves to laugh.
• Role-model. Brian knows that his participation in Maia's life in little, seemingly-minor ways is shaping, in part, the adult that she is going to become. She watches his behavior, the ways he treats other people, the choices he makes about how he spends his time, and the ways that his value system infuses his interaction with the world.
• Scientist. Brian is providing Maia with an understanding of an analytical, trial-and-error mode of learning about the world. I love that his brain works this way, because it's helping Maia to learn something that I cannot teach her nearly as well as he can (my brain functions differently). It's not clear yet how Maia is going to tackle the complexities of the world, so thank goodness she can watch how a scientist thinks!
  

Thank you, Brian, for being you. We love you.