Happy Father's Day! (No, not you, Deadbeat, I'm talking to the good ones.)

Happy Father's Day!  I don't normally post on Sunday; that's a day that's reserved for me sleeping in family time.  But I'm letting the Absent-Minded Professor sleep in because it's his Special Day.  A day to celebrate the madness that is dadness.  A day to remind ourselves, and the dads in our life, how much they're loved. 

Another thing Father's Day reminds me of is how awesome certain mommies are.

I am fortunate enough to be married to the Absent-Minded Professor, the terrific, devoted daddy of all four of the Young Carnivores.  This in itself makes my life simpler than that of many of my friends, who have to contend with blended families, step-parents, and exes.  Some of the exes are great dads, who continue to  man up and do their job participate fully in the parenting process.  Some of them, unfortunately, could be more helpful by just going away.

If you have one of those exes, I'm sorry.  I know that you love your kids and you're grateful they're here, and you wouldn't have had them without the jerk.  But I know it just grinds your grits to have to help the kids make Father's Day cards for him.

I have this friend.  Let's call her Meredith Baxter Birney, because at some point her story may end up as a Lifetime movie.  So my friend Meredith has one of the worst exes ever, and to her credit, she has not yet stabbed him in the eyeball with a fork.  Yet.  When she does, the jury will acquit her on reasons of He's a Jackass Who Had it Coming, and her story will be called Forks: They're Not Just for Pancakes Anymore.

Meredith's soon-to-be ex-husband, whom we'll call John Edwards Tiger Woods Captain Jackass Jim, is one of those incredibly lame dads made worse because he thinks he's awesome.  Jim puts on a show of taking the kids to their soccer games, but then he brings them home at 9:30 p.m. on a school night.  He takes them to the park but fails to apply sunblock to them. 

Meredith is the one who has to deal with the sleep-deprived, sunburned kids and make sure they get their homework done.  Jim is the one who gets to go to Aruba with his new girlfriend, who is 20 years younger than him. (Cliché much, Jim?) 

So anyway, Meredith, who is an amazing mom who loves her kids, helped her kids make Father's Day cards for Jim.  She made sure they had paper and crayons, and she refrained from muttering under her breath about what a muttonhead Jim is while they did the craft.  Because she is a mom.  And while Jim sits on his hand-me-down couch and plays Halo in a one-room apartment, she puts on her big-girl panties and gets. things. done.  

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies who are truly awesome.  You play catch and have tea parties.  You get into the messy, the ugly, and the joy of it all.  You can bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan.  You, my friend, are a Real Man.

Special hugs out to the mommies who get it done on their own.  Happy Father's Day, Mommy.  You're doing both jobs and more, and you're spectacular. 

Happy Father's Day, y'all.

xoxo, Mommy