First Click: One day after Father’s Day and we're all just dads again

June 22nd, 2015

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It’s the day after Father’s Day and life has returned to normal. The parades have all stopped and the confetti that fell to Earth has been swept aside.

I awake at 6:15am to news that Taylor Swift has toppled Apple Music. My oldest, the teenager, the boy whose gift to me was a drawing of a giant robot handing me a flower — he’s still fast asleep. But at 6:45am I begin singing the usual wakeup song: good morning to you, good morning to you, you smell like a monkey, you look like one too. He struggles to sit up and hug me — after 14 years of primate insults he knows I won’t quit singing until he’s upright. I kiss his forehead and return to my laptop.

30 minutes later I do it again. Good morning to you, good morning… repeating the same verses for my 12-year-old son, the one who drew “Happy Father’s Day” in block graffiti letters with mustaches replacing the horizontal lines of each “H.”

My daughter, the youngest, the one whose Father’s Day gift was to read me a story because she knows how proud I am that she’s reading books two years beyond “normal,” is already awake from the commotion. She deftly climbs into my lap, snaking her way between my arms already stretched out to the keyboard in front of me. I withdraw my hands and embrace.

These are the three best moments of every day and they arrive without any fanfare, #branded tweets, or help from Hallmark. It’s the time when familial love resets. The time when nobody is arguing. Nobody has yet to skin a knee and nobody is late for dinner. It’s the time I’m reminded of just how fragile my “babies” can be and how important being a dad is — despite the memes poking fun at the role.

It’s the day after Father’s Day and I’m just papa again, one of millions but also irreplaceable in the three young lives I must steward into this world — and that’s no joke.

Five stories to start your day



  1. Apple now says it will pay artists during Apple Music free trial

    After being publicly smacked down by music's biggest star, Apple is changing its tune. Late Sunday night, Apple VP Eddy Cue responded to the open letter that Taylor Swift posted earlier in the day, revealing that Apple now plans to pay artists, labels, and publishers for streams during Apple Music's three-month free trial. The premium streaming service is due to launch on June 30th.

  2. Slack and Flickr co-founder says 'fuck you' to WSJ over Charleston shooting

    Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of both Slack and Flickr, has condemned the The Wall Street Journal on Twitter for an editorial it published after the Charleston shooting. The WSJ described the massacre as "a problem that defies explanation" and claimed that "the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists." Butterfield responded: "Pretending it doesn't exist is, cognitively, really hard work. And it is dishonest and unfair and cruel work too. It's its own violence."

  3. Samsung makes big trucks transparent in the name of road safety

    Back in 2009, Russian design house Art Lebedev introduced the dramatically titled Transparentius concept for improving road safety. It was remarkably simple: put a camera on the front of large, slow-moving trucks and connect it to video displays on the back, thereby informing trailing drivers whether it's safe to overtake the big rig. That's the exact same idea that Samsung is now pursuing with a new prototype truck.

  4. Microsoft made a better YouTube search engine than Google

    YouTube might never be dethroned as the king of online video, but Microsoft has just made a compelling case for visiting Bing before you watch anything on YouTube. Microsoft gave a much-needed makeover to its Bing video search feature this week, and the final product is pretty good. It features larger, easier-to-identify video thumbnails, and you can even preview videos straight from the results to get an idea of what you're looking at. Just hover your cursor over a result to watch a small bit of the video.

  5. Sony's super thin Android-powered 4K TVs will start at $2,499

    The pricing means that Sony's new models won't be competing with the likes of Vizio for the entry-level 4K TV market, but the company said earlier this year that it was confident its Ultra HD TVs stood above their rivals. In The Verge's own experience with the X-series at CES this year, Sony's X series offer inky blacks, impressively bright colors, and OLED-rivaling contrast, on a 0.2-inch screen that's probably thinner than the smartphone in your pocket.

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