Future summer to come

Future summers to come
by Sean Cutshall

I know my daughter is only seven months old now, but I feel the change in weather, and it sparks an excitement for future summers to come with my daughter and family.

I'm from Texas, and, although some may think this automatically makes me a cowboy, camper and redneck, I'm sorry to say, you are mistaken. I could be no more a city-boy than Billy Crystal in the movie city slickers. I feel the warmer weather, and it makes me wonder just what type of summers are in store for my daughter and our family.

As a child, my summers involved travelling from city to city, playing soccer games. While some kids might have found this boring, I could have picked no better place to spend my three month vacation from school. I wonder if my daughter might follow in my footsteps, and, just maybe, become the next Native American Mia Hamm. I, of course, would have no problem with this achievement, and believe it to a real genuine possibility, but, regardless of where her interest falls, I think I'd be better a father to start preparing for the summers ahead.

I know it's early to do any real planning, but thinking of such things couldn't hurt. I realize now, after years of wishing I had better saved memories of the things I did with my summers, I am making a real effort to archive all time spent together with my daughter, whether summer or not. This is something I feel strongly about, and believe today's computer applications and programs, make it easier for us parents to document and archive every memorable moment.

Seven months ago, I might have been able to tell you, I'd be playing golf, watching movies, garage sale shopping or, truth be told, incarcerated, but today, I am a living, breathing shadow to my daughter, and my activities mirror the interests of my beautiful daughter. She may become Mia Hamm, Miranda Lambert, Sarah Palin or Martha Stewart, but it doesn't matter. Like mine growing up, her future summers will be fun, and will breed hope and dreams, I pray, in the spirit of my daughter. I plan to give her the best a grateful heart can give her. I am her father, and, I am destiny daddy.

First sign of sickness

First sign of sickness
by Sean Cutshall

All indications point to my daughter being alright, as her first sign of sickness takes me for a ride. I will admit, it has been more a test for me, her daddy. With her mother, whom has been the perfect show of motherhood during the first six months of our daughter's life, handling the panic of a uncomfortable child and the worrisome panic of a first time father, we all seem to be getting through our daughter's first sickness.

As a father, and able to admit God placed a special gift of knowing all things about our baby's cries and sighs with the mother, I have to admit, hearing the doctor report our baby had an ear infection stirred up many emotions inside this first time father. Is she in pain? Does she need medicine? What can I do to help ease the pain and discomfort of my little angel? All these questions continue to rattle of the walls of my brain. Walls, which until these last six months, seemed destined to house a very peculiar and, often times, uniquely strange thing called my inner voice. I want to help her, take away any discomfort she might have. But for now, I have to be content with the knowledge this is part of her becoming a healthy child.

My first reaction is to do anything and everything to ease her pain, and take away the infection. And in this case, fighting off infection via medicine might be the best course of action. But, I am aware of the days coming soon when tough decisions must be made in how our daughter fights sickness, whether physical or mental. There may not always be a course of actions so simple and clear. And, simple answers won't always mean the best answers.

According the American Medical Association, children today have a weaker immune system due to the overuse of antibiotics. And, while I am experiencing first hand the difficulty in watching our child be in pain and discomfort, there may be a day we roll back the medicinal solution for a particular discomfort and let her immune system show it's strength and fight, and ability to grow strong through the fighting of infection.

I can only imagine, at this point in my fatherhood journey, just how challenging this might be, and how skeptical I might feel. Like anything else, there are many different things to look at before choosing any course of action. Like knowing when to allow a child to self-soothe, it might be just as painful for me, as a father, as it is for my six month old daughter.

Today, I'm just glad to know my daughter will get better, and her first sickness is very much a part of the growing process for her, and for me. She will feel better, and be stronger and healthier for it. We will be stronger for it. I am her father, and I am Destiny Daddy.

In our babies we trust

In our babies we trust
by Sean Cutshall

I have a theory growing inside my head, and it is continuing to build momentum with each day I spend with my six month old daughter. I believe some of the answers to life's most basic questions and problems can be found by simply watching the actions of our young children, specifically those in the first couple years of their life.

Don't misunderstand my background or qualifications here, this is a theory, and one built upon some time spent in one of my favorite sports, extreme mental daydreaming. I'm a first time parent here, but I've made some relatively monumental realizations in the last six months. You can say it's just conicidence, but I see the tools to understanding trying to crawl right in front of me. Is it possible that before we, as humans, were influenced, taught or forced to think or judge certain things a certain way, we were more capable of living fully, without all the questions and unknown answers in our lives.

Even at six months old, my daughter taught me lessons I never would have imagined. She is beyond being "duped" by motives or actions not fitting into her basic survival needs. I, as her father, can try to convince her to be happy and awake, because it is what I feel is best for that moment, due to schedule or awareness of surroundings, but my daughter cannot or will not fake the feeling for any outside motivation. I watch her closely, some times for hours, and she is more in tune with her basic survival needs, and unwilling to hinder any of those needs by stepping outside that response. If I as an adult could only be so rigid.

As an adult, I feel so much time is wasted in the stress of life, and life's unknowns. Is it possible, my life was never suppossed to stretch outside the responses to my basic survival needs. And if it did, again, is it possible there is a simple and prevoked response innate in me for that subject. My daughter shows me daily if she is hungry, and distracting her with shiny doll, shiny miniature car, with shiny, bright wheels doesn't change her focus and determination to be fed. And, even in my relatively short time as a father, I can gurantee if my daughter is tired, she is not seeking a hot liquid, composed of ground up beans, to help her current state of being tired. She is tired, and only one response will match that current, basic need: sleep.

I know life is not this simple and concrete, and that as we grow older, we are given more stimuli and more complex things to deal with on a daily basis. But, I disagree that life can't sometimes be this simple, and that some of life's answers and motivation can be found by looking at how we lived very early on in our own life. If you are opening a bright colored cookie wrapper, my daughter doesn't care your color, your weight or your background. Her interest, curiosity is just the same.

I am grateful for the chance to be a father. I cherish today, and live today through the eyes of my daughter. Initially scared of how I would teach her to live a life I haven't quite successfully lived myself, today, I realize more and more she is the perfect teacher, and living life is what she already knows how to do. As a parent, I'm beginning to see my job more clearly. It is not to teach her to live, it is to shield her from all the negaive influences that will distract her from living the way she instinctively knows already. I am a father, and I will do anything to protect the understanding of life she already has. I am