As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a father. Because I was quite verbal about this as a young high school student, I scared off many potential girlfriends…or it could have been the acne and all-pro spitting gap between my front teeth. Actually, nah, I'll go with the “wanting to be a dad” thing.

By the middle of my senior year of high school, the majority of my college requirements were fulfilled, but I needed a few random hours to fill out my schedule. So I chose an elective course I'd been wanting to take for quite some time. The class was called Child Development, which was a bit ironic because I'm not sure how much development actually took place in there. The course was basically a daycare that included toddlers of teachers in the school district who couldn't otherwise afford the help with their kids.

I was the only male student in the class, and I recall one or two of the girls in there being pregnant, so they probably took the course a bit more seriously than I did. Since I was the only guy, by default, I was in charge of all of the boys. For the record, I'm using the term “in charge” very loosely. The kids loved me because I genuinely enjoyed being with them and also because I loved me some “Duck, Duck, Goose.” Every time we'd play it, I would play like it was game seven of the NBA finals. Thus, nine times out of ten, I'd get “goosed.”

Another thing the kids were fond of was, whenever I'd be asked to take the boys to the bathroom for their “group pee,” I'd always let them back away from the urinals and have a contest to see who could “go” the furthest. Having referenced that, now might be a good time to apologize to the Quaker Valley High School janitorial staff circa 1986. We cleaned up as best we could, but those bathroom paper towels weren't exactly the quicker picker upper. They were more like the slower smearer all overer.

I guess the reason I bring all this up is because I never got tired of that class and in fact, I always looked forward to it. In my 18-year-old mind, it was proof that I needed to have a child of my own, no matter how naïve that desire was at the time.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on who you're talking to, I'd have to wait close to 15 years after taking that class before my first child was born. But, as every parent knows, it's well worth it. My son Roman came into this world after an emergency C-section delivery, thanks to an extreme lack of oxygen caused by a shortened umbilical cord.

But because of the C-section, I was able to spend the first two hours of his life holding him alone in a quiet waiting room. As I've told him many times, it was there that I programmed his computer for life. I told him all that I felt he would need to know as he was about to navigate his own journey.

As the years have passed, I've realized that I was the one getting my computer reprogrammed. Because at that point in my life, sitting in that quiet waiting room, I was no longer waiting. My life as a father had begun, and I had a new companion for the rest of my journey.