June 22: Why my son's mom is a good mom

She looks after our son while I am at work.

She feeds him and changes him and plays with him and she does the laundry and does her best to keep the house clean.

She thinks I don't notice. I do. I just don't say anything.

The fault lies with me.

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When my son is at my house, she calls to check up on him.

"How's my baby doing?" she asks and I always tell her that he is doing well. Then she asks what he's doing and I tell her he's sleeping or he's playing with a deck of cards or he's looking out the window and screaming baby language.

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We call our son "B-man."

I started calling him that before he was born, when the ultrasound showed us he was a boy. His mom had settled on a name, which started with B, and from there I went with B-man.

Now everyone calls him that and it will probably be a nickname that stays with him for life.

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She gets excited when B-Man reaches a new milestone, no matter how trivial.

When he learns the concept of "give me five," when he says "pop" when he pops a bubble, when he sings along to Choo Choo Soul, his mom is there to celebrate with him. She'll sweep him into her arms and kiss his chubby face and say "I love my B-Man."

And B-Man will laugh.

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B-Man likes it when I come around and he likes to go out and have fun with me.

I am happy for this and I am grateful.

But when he gets hurt, he wants his mom.

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She lectures me when I am taking B-Man for a weekend or any other sort of extended stay. She will tell me how to dress him, when and what to feed him. She will admonish me to pay attention to him at all times, even if I am working and he is with me. "B-Man comes first," she says.

And he does.