He's a keeper.

When I was in fourth grade my Mom got her first (and only) boyfriend after my parents split. I hated him. Oh did I hate him. He would come over and tell us to do the dishes and clean up, ugh! He would say things like “let’s do something nice for your mom and pick up the house” and he would even tell us to not talk a certain way towards our mom. Who does this man think he is and doesn’t he know Mom can do all this housework herself? Soon we became the Brady Bunch sans all the singing, sibling bonding, and family lessons. It was hard transitioning into a new family and it was hard having someone force us to do housework; I will never ever forget Saturday morning yard work and literally raking dirt and piling leaves in trash bags. Let’s skip ahead a few years when we all started getting along because who wants to dwell on the hormonal tweenage years, right?

It was a love/ hate relationship my teenage years meaning I loved him except for the times he made me do chores. One of my all time favorite memories with him is the day I got my first car. We had picked it up in South Florida and it was sitting in our driveway on a rainy Christmas morning*. It was stick shift and I had only driven automatic the last two years so I needed someone to teach me. He knew how excited I was so Christmas afternoon he drove me to the Walmart parking lot and gave me my first lesson. He was patient that first lesson and the dozen or so after that until I was ready to be on my own. 

He’s bald, 5 foot 7 on a good day and swears he looks like Bruce Willis (we all agree his twin is Dave Attell). He is Jewish and must have told me 5000 times to close the fridge door, turn off the lights, turn up the a/c, ect; they are so burned in my brain I’d like to consider myself ¼ Jewish. He tells awful jokes, long stories, and takes two days to play a 10 minuet prank.

A super cheesy country song comes to mind when I think about him:

And then all of a sudden
Oh, it seemed so strange to me
How we went from something's missing
To a family
Lookin' back all I can say
About all the things he did for me
Is I hope I'm at least half the dad parent
That he didn't have to be

He doesn't have to be the guy that teases until no end. He doesn’t have to play wrestle Moses every time they see each other. He doesn’t have to treat us to lunch. He didn’t have to pay for my wedding. He didn’t have to lead morning devotions with us before school every day. He didn’t have to be anything, but he is, and for that I love him so much.

Today is his special day and I hope he knows he will always have a special place in my heart. Happy Birthday Rob! You’re a wonderful dad!

* Technically he did buy the entire car the day we bought it but you better believe I had to pay off half the car. There is no way a true Jew would just give their 17 year old daughter a car without her working for it, right?