It’s Plus! It’s Plus!

Hello Blogosphere:

This is my first post and while this is my first post, this post is seventeen years in the making. Around or about this time, seventeen years ago, I learned that I was going to be a father. To some, my next admission may sound unbelievable. I knew at the time I was engaged in the activity that causes pregnancy that I was going to be a father.

In late October 1994, I surprised my wife while she was on a business trip. At the time, she was a college admissions officer and was making high school recruiting visits on the West coast. If memory serves me correctly, we were only going to be apart for about ten days. However, as is often the case with newlyweds, a day a part feels like a week and a week apart feels like you should get your butt on a plane so that you can be wherever your better half is going to be.

My better half was going to be in Los Angeles. I bought a plane ticket so that I could surprise her. As it turns out the surprise was on me when I landed in LA early that Saturday morning. I sat in LAX for more than ten hours waiting on her to arrive. Her flight which was departing from Houston was delayed time and time again. In those days, there were no smart phones, tablets, or laptop computers with Wi-Fi to keep me entertained so ten hours felt like two days.

She finally arrived about 8:00 pm. She was surprised to find me sitting at her gate. In 1994, you could actually wait at the gate for the arriving and departing flights. And yes, I do realize that I am getting old. We were both very excited to see one another. There was a lot of PDA (public displays of affection) that day. I know that I broke one of the most important Man Laws by willingly and voluntarily participating in all that PDA but hey it was my wife – cut me some slack.

Our excitement about seeing each another combined with our brief separation led to some adult activity 😉 In the midst of that adult activity, I casually yet confidently said to her, “I think you just became pregnant”. She gave me a pacifying laugh. I think she thought this was some moment where I wanted her to stroke my ego but it really wasn’t. I had a strange feeling, a sixth sense if you will, that my life was going to be very different in a short nine months. We returned home and thought nothing more about my prediction.

However, one early weekday morning around 4:30 am, less than 30 days after my pronouncement that she was pregnant, my wife woke me and uttered something I will never forget. Those four words she spoke that morning resonate with me just as loudly today as they did seventeen years ago. She exclaimed in a cautiously optimistic voice, “it’s plus, it’s plus!” It’s plus referenced the results of the pregnancy test.

The premonition that I had just weeks ago turned out to be a reality. I wiped the crust from my eyes and got out of the bed slowly. Like a zombie, I walked right pass her and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the lights and closed the bathroom door. I stood over the sink, stared in the mirror and wondered what in the world had I gotten myself into. What was I supposed to do now? What did I know about pregnancy, having a baby, and/or raising a child? There was no instructional manual for me to read or follow. There was no child raising expert in my family. I had the unenviable task of figuring this fatherhood thing out like so many fathers before me – by trial and error.

Seventeen years later, I now know that there are better ways to becoming a great father than suffering through trial and error. I know there are some incontrovertible truths to being a great father and molding a child so that he or she becomes a responsible citizen who is hard-working, self-assured, socially conscious, scholastically focused and determined. At RaisingSupaman.com you will have a chance to glean from me and great fathers the locations of the safe havens and booby traps along the road of the greatest journey a man could ever experience, fatherhood. At RaisingSupaman.com you will be inspired to help your child develop their innate superhuman ability.