Dads who like nail polish rock

One year for my birthday my father gave me a blanket for riding bareback on my horse, and I still think of it as the best childhood present ever. Another year he came home late from a business trip on my birthday and gave me a rubber snake. Which was weird. But it was from my dad, so I named it and kept it for years as a treasured possession. (My dad will read this, by the way, and deny that the snake incident ever occurred.)
Dads are most extraordinary, imperfect creatures ever. A good one is a mixture of love and irritation, trust and suspicion, energy and laziness.
My father is the perfect mix of imperfection. His love for his daughters so overwhelms him that, these days, he cries nearly every time he talks to them. But last time we were together, he got into an argument with the 2-year-old Tyrant over potato chips.
But that’s okay. It makes for good family lore, and over the past four and a half decades such incidents have created the imperfect, deliberate mix of me.
I feel the same way about my husband-as-father. He’s currently reading the paper in bed while wearing a handmade necktie and watching a Blue’s Clues episode with the Tyrant. But he’s capable of blocking out a child’s heartfelt expressions of love in order to catch the Red Sox highlights.
I was going to write a list of good paternal attributes. But we all know what those are: love, attention, discipline, blah blah blah. Instead I’ve made a list I think I’ll call Stuff About Dads, compiled with enthusiastic nods to my father and my husband, the two best men that I know. I love you both to the moon despite the fact that you occasionally gang up against me.

Dad once gave me his fishing rod after hooking a blue marlin and let me reel it in.
Husband knows exactly what to say to calm down the children after I’ve threatened to pull the legs off their favorite stuffed animals.
Husband doesn’t get the least bit jealous when the Pterodactyl gives me open-mouthed kisses.
When I first became a journalist, my dad thought I was so good that he suggested I not put my name on my stories in case some people were offended by them.
Husband thinks daughter is so beautiful that he sort of hopes she’s gay so he won’t have to deal with boy issues.
When I was 12, Dad made his secretary type all of my poems and he published them in a little booklet called “Tricia’s Treasures.”
Husband hardly minds at all when the Pterodactyl wears pink nail polish and lip gloss.
Husband defends Pterodactyl admirably when I complain that all the bathrooms smell like pee.
Husband is self-appointed Arbiter of Homework, which is fortunate as I have so far declined to participate in nearly all school activities.
Dad has pushed the Prom Dress incident (see Prom In New Orleans blog entry) to the farthest recesses of his brain.
Dad bought me a pony when I was 8, and for years let me think that I paid for it with the $20 I had saved in my piggy bank.
Husband has nearly consented to let the Diva pierce her ears and has patiently taught the Tyrant to watch baseball with him.

Most of all, they rock because they think I rock, and on my worst days, believe me, that’s a lie they tell themselves.
So Happy Father’s Day to my dad and my husband, and to all the dads out there, and to all the moms who have to be dads, too. Hope your day is filled with homemade neckties, colorful cards and the beverage of your choice.