My Man

Today is Ryan Bartis' birthday.  I thought about writing a post of X reasons I love him where X is how many years old he is today.  But, I rethought that for a couple of reasons.  I didn't want to embarrass him by telling his age and it would have been a pretty long post. 

I wrote last week about one of the reasons I love Ryan, he leaves me alone/lets me recharge.  I mentioned in that post that I hope he's setting a good example for my boys by encouraging me to rest and recharge.  That brings to mind another reason I love Ryan Bartis - he's a good daddy.

As I type this, he's at the high school watching football practice. He's already watched game film on this week's opponent.  He does all this so he can share his love of football with the boys but also connect with them over it.  Same reason he does fantasy football with the Bigs.  They connect over it.

Sports is a big part of our family life.  Ryan loves to share that with the Bigs.  He loves to watch them play, talk about how they played, watch other people play, talk about how those people played and what they can learn from them.  He's been pretty open to my momma input of how to talk to the boys after a game.  Start with positives.  You (him or the boys) can only be mad for the ride home.  After we get home it's about growth and getting better. 

When I figured out that B was autistic, Ryan was not quite there yet.  It was like staring into a dark cave, we didn't know what would come next.  At that point, it didn't really matter to me what was next, I just wanted help with whatever would come.  There is a definite grieving period when you discover your kid is different. For us, we didn't grieve because B is autistic, we grieved the loss of who we expected B would be.  I didn't go through it right away, but Ryan did. He had to terms with the idea that B might not play sports.  This means that he bonds with B differently than he does the Bigs.  But he still does it. 

B struggled at before school care. I need to be at school at 7:20, B's school doesn't start until 8:20.  Yep, a full hour to wait before going to school.  It made for a long day.  So, Ryan rearranged his schedule so he can take B to school.  Everyone's life has improved.  B gets to sleep more and gets one on one time with his daddy.  It's greatness.

When B decided he wanted to be on a team, Ryan was right there to coach him.  And when B decided he didn't want to be on that very team, Ryan stuck around and coached the team without him. 

My man is a keeper.