The magic of a dad

Let me start off by saying that I love my vacuum cleaner like I love my coffee pot. Sure, I could live without them, but they add such joy, make everything so much easier. I have two small children, with an additional two (or three) here during the week, and another two (or three) here on the weekends. As you can imagine, I need my vacuum cleaner (and my coffee, but that's another story) every single day, sometimes twice. And yesterday, inexplicably, it just stopped sucking. It still turned on, still tried, but there was no suction.

Jess woke up this morning, sick and coughing and with a fever. I told her she could stay home and gave her some tylenol, which meant that twenty minutes later, she was up rocking and rolling and ready to face the day. She and Sam were playing on the computer, and I mentioned to Marc that my vacuum cleaner wasn't working. He took off his coat, because he was halfway out the door, and came back in. He sat down, took apart the machine, used a bent coat hanger, a hammer, screw driver, scissors and who knows what else, and ten minutes later - I had a fully functioning vacuum cleaner. Like magic.

I don't know if it's that I grew up without a dad, and with a mechanically challenged mother (although gifted in so many, many things - she would not have been able to magically fix an applicance) - but I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Comparable to the time he rewired the dryer. And I said to the kids "Daddy just fixed the vacuum cleaner!" with such joy and gratitude in my voice, and they ... didn't care. So what? Of course Daddy fixed the vacuum cleaner, that's what Daddy does. It wasn't the same for them.

Every now and again, it strikes me how much I missed out by not having a dad. And today was a little bit different - not having a guy to fix the vacuum cleaner as a kid meant that I'm awed and impressed when my husband can do it now. Today I realized how much my kids gained by having Marc for a dad. It's not magic, it's just Daddy.