Father's Day Fail.

Father's Day: A day to celebrate fathers and fatherhood.

For me, Father's Day is a day full of pressure. The pressure to have a really great present (wrapped perfectly, of course, not that he would care if it was instead presented in a suitcase, or wrapped in mysterious see-through material called 'air'), the pressure of making sure the day is perfect - starting with a sleep-in (for him, obviously), ending with a really special dinner, and in between filled with well-behaved children, morning cuddles in bed where that perfectly wrapped present is opened, and the school-made 'artworks' are adored and placed in a prime spot for future adornment. It may even include a peaceful bike/car ride, a lovely picnic in the park, and warm, loving hugs and kisses. Sounds great, right?

I felt this pressure start a couple of weeks ago, when I knew this day was approaching, and time was running out to find that 'really great present'. See, Husband is a present person. Sounds easy? Totally not. Not in my case, anyway, since I'm not a present person. I discovered this in our early years of marriage when I merged his love of cooking with his love of Nando's, and bought a sauce and BBQ tool Nando's gift set. It was met with a sickly grin and "Aw, thanks. Promise me you won't get me anything like that ever again." The pressure is on, because it seems easy for him, but for me, it's like pushing water uphill to find out that once the water is there, the person really just wanted a Coke.

I also get distracted by things, and then organising is hard. For our 10th anniversary, Husband secretly recorded a song, got me a tattoo, and took me out to dinner. I had realised later that when he had said "we're going to America, don't worry about presents" meant that he was still totally going to do something. At the last minute, the night before, I went to Coles and bought him something special. Imagine his surprise the next morning when he got to open a box of Pizza Shapes and a Turkish Delight. That lucky, lucky man.

Of course, I got distracted with the immediacy of every day life with three children, and before I knew it, Friday arrived. I hadn't organised anything for Father's Day, or for Kids Church, which I was leading for the next 3 weeks.

To make matters worse, the Internet was against me. Facebook was covered in a bazillion status updates directed at fathers, poems, photos of lovingly-prepared food, kids cuddling, super-special presents, and all my favourite mediums (like Pintrest) where I usually go for ideas- were also chock full of pressure. And on top of all that, the irony of ironies, I married a man who doesn't even like cake.

It's so easy to get caught up in the idea of a 'perfect Father's Day'.

At the very least, I decided, I would make sure Husband got to sleep in, but meant that I spent the whole morning shushing my children (and having them shush each other) which, true to form, became a battle of Who Could Shush The Loudest. I couldn't win.

I did make Husband breakfast in bed, though. Which is about as romantic as I get. It doesn't have a pretty Instagram border around it, though. Thankfully, Husband doesn't care about Instagram.

It (the food, not the photo) was delivered to Husband in bed, bordering on being cold because in order to prove to the Internet that I, too, loved and adored my husband, I had to spend 20 minutes clearing space on the kitchen bench, cleaning it up, and trying to get the photograph exactly right. But then I couldn't post it to Facebook because we were now running late for church.

For Kids Church, I'd organised a Father's Day craft. Which took up the entire lesson. Not sure if that was good or bad, as my whole point of making the lesson about Father's Day was so that we could talk about our Father in Heaven, and how He is the perfect dad for us, and loves us more than our earthly fathers ever could...

After church, I staggered home determined that now was going to be lunch and present opening time. The kids took the bag of gifts and totally dropped it and then fell on top of it. It was at that moment that I decided that Mother's Day wasn't that important, and that I'd end them all. Right now.

Husband, using his uncanny sixth sense that something might be bothering me at that point (I believe I was standing on the table waving a rolling pin, threatening immediate death) sent me toward isolation in the bedroom for almost 4 hours. I watched a movie and had a nap. When I awoke, feeling in a better position to try again to make Father's Day perfect, I took the kids on a bike ride to get some photos that I had wanted to have done and printed before Father's Day. Fortunately for me, I had told Husband that I had planned to do these and he'd said "Yeah, no. I have a million photos of the kids at work, why would I want more?"

Um, because it was my freaking idea of a great gift, jerk!

Husband had a chance to record a song he'd written yesterday. I got some nice shots of our kids, and to limit more mess in the kitchen (except for the one tiny part that is now clean), he took us all out for dinner. Evidently there's an upper limit to mess. I didn't think that was possible, until I washed up plates in the bathroom sink.

I do really appreciate all the love and effort Husband puts in as both a great husband and father... I'm just not a present person! And, I also happen to have very poor organisational skills.

Happy Father's Day, Husband :)