When Oscar was born Dean made it very clear that he wanted him to be in a position to embrace the English side of his heritage, which is fair enough. I wholeheartedly believe in understanding and experiencing the full spectrum of one’s cultural history, and spent much of my childhood dressing up in clogs, eating spiced cookies and marzipan and listening to my mother mix Dutch and English with her family. For Oscar, there are some things we know we will do (or at least we hope we will do) as he grows up, and some things that will probably fall by the wayside. When he’s a baby, it’s easy to create a world around him, but as he gets older and starts to go to school and have friends, that might not be so easy.
In any case, Dean really wanted to celebrate Father’s Day on the same day that it is in the United Kingdom, which is a different day to what it is in Australia (just in case you didn’t know). In Australia, fathers wake up to sloppy crafts and scribbled cards in September, but in England that happens in June. As Oscar is a baby who can neither write nor do crafts, he’s pretty flexible on the timing of Father’s Day, so he and I worked together to bring a little Father’s Day enjoyment to Dean.
There may have been some dodgy craft (do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a baby to put their hand flat on clay so you can take an imprint!?) and a letter ‘written’ by Oscar, but apart from me nearly missing the day altogether because there are no reminders in shops or on the radio, it went off without a hitch. Also, we discovered that, like the ray of sunshine that he is, Oscar looks just fantastic in yellow!
So to Dean I’ll just say this: thanks for being the best dad I could ever have imagined or wanted for the amazing little boy in our lives, and for any kids who will come after him. Your energy, humour, ability to get a smile and sense of adventure make our lives all the more interesting and we love you endlessly, even if for Oscar that means we enjoy spitting on your face!
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