6/16/13 - Being a Dad / My Dad

6/16/2013 - Day #157 of lucky year 2013! It's FATHER'S DAY so you KNOW what I feel lucky for tonight. I feel lucky that I am father. I LOVE being a dad. And I am so lucky and thankful that Sarah Jayne Sherr said yes to marry me so we could start a family and I could get to be a dad! And I am thankful and lucky that we have two of the most wonderful kids on the planet!
I am also lucky and thankful for MY DAD - David Sherr. He is an amazing father, still, even now, takes ...care of me and us. Always has good advice, and even more often has a good joke. When people tell me I am a good dad, all I can do is think to thank MY dad, who taught me everything I know about being dad-like.

Even further, I am lucky that I have had so many other amazing father figures in my life. Uncles, Cousins, Bosses, Colleagues, Friends....the list goes on and on. I would like to note Aaron Bechtel, my maternal grandfather, who also taught me a lot about being a man, a parent, and a good citizen of the country and the Earth. He was (and still is) an amazing role model for me. And Zayda, Solomon Soskin, my dad's foster father, who, with Bubba (Nettie Soskin) took in my dad and his brother and sister and made an amazing family. They set the foundation for what has allowed MY dad to be an amazing dad to me and, thus, me learning how to parent to my own children.
Being a parent has been the scariest, best, most amazing, up and down roller coaster of my life (cue the scene from Parenthood the movie with Steve Martin, at the end), and it's one of the only jobs for which almost all of the training comes WHILE you are doing it, but I really do believe that it is the most important job that we do, and I love it, and I love my kids, and fatherhood is the best!
So, <hugs> to all the dads out there, especially mine, and hoping you all feel as lucky as I do on this fine evening!