with them and for them

There must be a million ways to be a good dad.

His default is kindness.  He is patient and forgiving, wise and resourceful.  But his first reaction is to listen, and his factory setting is to react kindly.

He remembers, more often than I do, to stand back and watch the boys.  But he is constantly doing things with them, too. With them and for them and because of them and in spite of them.
I know he wants to give them the world, but he knows he's giving them more by denying them a lot.

Sometimes, when they're playing together and he's asked to pick a superpower, he chooses to be invisible. But that doesn’t work for me. Sometimes he is all I can see.
And sometimes, because I'm watching him, I remember to watch the boys, too.
I watch them spiraling into themselves and have faith that they will grow into men who use kind words and their imaginations because their father does.