Yesterday morning, I was taking a walk in our neighborhood. As I walked by one house, I saw a young man getting into his vehicle in front of the house. Suddenly, a toddler opened the house's front door, leaving the storm door behind him ajar, which allowed a young chocolate lab puppy to rush through. The puppy headed out into the yard, where I greeted it and petted it as the mother appeared on the porch, holding a crying baby in her right arm as she grabbed the toddler by the shoulder to prevent him from stepping off the concrete porch, while calling to the puppy at the same time. After a few seconds, and an encouraging push from me, the dog returned to the porch where she ushered it into the house and got the door shut. I thought, “She’s going to have a much busier day than I.”

As I continued my walk, I thought, “They need a collar or harness for that dog. It will be three years old before she has two hands free at the same time to grab it.” I even thought about going to an online pet store, ordering and paying for a collar, and having it shipped addressed to “our neighbor” at their address. I decided against that gesture, not knowing the exact size or preferred color, and knowing the puppy would go through several collars as it grows.

It has been a long time since we had a toddler and an infant in our house, but I remember how much work that phase of our lives was. Fortunately, we were sharing a single full-time job then, so we had time for childcare and flexibility to hand off household and childcare chores. In addition, our children were welcome in our workplace. We didn’t need to hire childcare when we led worship. Our congregations had plenty of grandmothers and grandfathers who cared for our children while we took care of preaching and sacraments. I remember gently asking one parishioner not to reward our daughter by taking her out of the service for cookies when she fussed. She had learned the art of getting to the fellowship hour refreshments ahead of the congregation. Our kids grew up knowing how to get in the front of the line when food was being served.

Another thing I remember about that phase of our lives is that I was often tired. I remember wishing that I could sneak a nap. I still joke that our son quickly learned to sleep through the night when he was young, but our daughter slept through the night once when she was 5. That is a significant exaggeration, but I often was up with her in the middle of the night and struggled to push myself out of bed when I would have preferred to roll over and go back to sleep.

Our experiences were sufficient to bring a smile of recognition to my face at the young mother trying to care for an infant, a toddler, and a puppy all at once while her husband headed off to work or an errand or wherever it was he was going. It also made me glad that we live close enough to our son and his family to offer a bit of help occasionally. They have a toddler, two elementary school children, and a teen heading to high school in the fall. And their puppy is a Newfoundland dog, which is a gentle giant. She weighs over 100 pounds. Although her temperament is gentle and she loves affection and cuddling, she is big enough to poke her nose into any food on the table and knock over anything on the floor, including children.

Yesterday, our son told me a story about his youngest, who was wide awake at 4:30 am, and when his father came in to ask him to be quiet, he was bursting with a joke he had to share. He is just learning the concept of jokes, and his jokes are generally a lot funnier to him than they are to the rest of us. His joke went something like this: “Look! Strawberry. Look! Nerf gun. Nerf gun go BANG! Strawberry go messy! HA HA HA!” The joke was sufficient to draw a laugh from Dad, but the repetition threatened to wake the rest of the family with the need for the BANG to be loud, despite Nerf guns not making a loud sound. He had to carry the toddler downstairs to move his wakeful enthusiasm away from the bedrooms in their house. Later in the day, the young one had a nap when he got tired, but Dad never got time for a nap with other responsibilities.

One of the deep joys of Father’s Day for me is my delight at watching our son as a father. He is a good father who genuinely enjoys being with his family and caring for his children. He has also developed the skill of taking a five-minute nap while lying in the middle of the floor or out on the lawn when he knows others are around who will keep the children safe. It is a skill I used to possess and one I can remember my father practicing. I learned much about being a father from my dad, and I hope I passed on some of those qualities to our son.

We are very fortunate to have a son-in-law who is also a wonderful father. They have only one child. Whenever we are all together, I witness the deep bond between him and our grandson. I can also see how much he genuinely enjoys being a father.

A few days ago, I was asked, “What do you want for Father’s Day?” I’m very fortunate and not in need of gifts. The best part of Father’s Day is our children and grandchildren. I will get what I want: family gathered around our table. I wish our daughter and her family could be with us, but I don’t begrudge that they are with our grandson’s other grandma and grandpa this weekend.

Happy Father’s Day. I hope the day allows you to remember good fathers and witness some of the joy of the bond between fathers and children.