There is a father in all of this

I realize that this blog is mine, not Daniel's, and though he faithfully reads it, I can count his posts on one hand.  He would really like to write about his new daughter, and his cool family, and his crazy life, but he is presently at a conference, while trying to beat back some kind of bronchial ailment, and trying to start a new role in his job.

So I'll chime in on his behalf.

Daniel Rupp is smitten with Jubi Sue.  She is smitten with him, too.  He is comfort to her, and assurance, and specialness, and closeness, and everything's-going-to-be-alright (all the things a Daddy should be).  She crawls into his lap and stays there for as long as her curiosity will allow; always beckoned away by some new trick she sees her brothers doing with the couch cushions.

Daniel is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and once he makes his mind up about something, it would take all the great armies of the world to change it.  He was slow in deciding to adopt, while I was ready to plunge in hastily (I have just described the way our marriage works, in fact, but that is another subject altogether).  The clincher for him was talking to Tim Hedden, a good friend and adoptive daddy here in our city.  I'm not exactly sure what it was that Tim said, but afterward, Daniel told me he was ready.  From then on, he was 110% devoted to his daughter, from the paperwork to the bloodwork to the gruntwork to the homework.  And now, he is right there with me, in the dirtywork, through the sweat and the tears, forging our family in this way.

I kept him awake on the eve of meeting our daughter, panicking, crying, wringing my hands, and saying lots of irrational things.  He just listened, wishing we were both asleep, and then he said lots of rational things.  I don't remember most of them, but I know that as he spoke, I calmed down, and eventually fell asleep, with the knowledge that G0D has never let us down, and the knowledge that Jubilee was made for us and we were made for her, and the knowledge that through it all, I will always have this great guy by my side, talking me down from the precipice.

Daniel always jokes that a decade from now, while some of our peers are having mid-life crises, we will be needing a mid-life break.  Our whole life is a crisis.  Just when we start to get a teeny bit comfy, G0D or we (or both) gets a crazy idea and we go for it.  There really is no harm in that, I don't think, as long as you get your sleep and read your B1BLE and find a good coffee that you can look forward to; and as long as you pick up birdwatching a good 20 years earlier than everybody else.  I've heard birds are calming.

I think I'll stop there.  I love you, D. Rupp.  You are the best father our new little black-eyed beauty could have asked for.  Here's to this whirlwind we call our life!