The Father’s Day card in the mail came unexpectedly Thursday morning. Even though it has been a little more than two years since my son was born, the thought of being a father catches me by surprise sometimes.

After all of the diaper changes and sleepless nights, one might question how this could be. In many ways, though, I have felt like my life has been in overdrive with little time to think and reflect on how much my life has really changed.

When I opened the envelope from my parents, I looked at the front of the card filled with sweet images of fathers and sons. In one picture a son swings from the arms of his dad in a sunlit park. Another picture depicts a little tyke standing on a stool helping his dad wash dishes. In a third photo another boy walks his bike with training wheels alongside his dad as they make their way down a gravel road.

I must confess, my reaction to these photos took me by surprise. Instead of relating to the fathers in these pictures, my immediate thoughts went to those many times in my childhood when I looked up to my father.

An electrical engineer by trade, my father has always been constructing things. I remember weaving in between the stud walls when I was 8 years old marveling at how my dad was helping build our house from the slab up. I remember spending hours looking up to him as we put together various contraptions for science fair projects.

I can’t remember a time when I haven’t looked up to my father. He was always Superman in my eyes.

Days following my dad around his office were spent wide-eyed wandering among the motor parts, wiring and auto parts scattered around his superhero hideout.

Just two years into fatherhood, I am beginning to see the same wide-eyed look in my own son.

As he begins to maneuver through his own world, I see him mimicking many of things I do on a day to day basis. I watch him look into the mirror as I shave and then reach for the razor and shaving cream to do the same.

He picks up his bag full of stuffed animals and toys as I reach for my camera bag and laptop computer some mornings and follows me out the door waving goodbye to Mom as if he were headed out to his next newspaper assignment.

These days, Gibson is learning new words at an exponential rate. A vocabulary that started with “mom” and “dad” now includes all sorts of big words like apple and ambulance. However, the most used word to come from his mouth these days may be the smallest.

Most every word that comes out of his mouth is coupled with the word, “my.” It’s either “my” toy, “my” juice, “my” phone, “my” bunny or “my” any other object that happens to be in his sight.

His use of the word was cute at first. Now the steady drumbeat of “my this” and “my that” wears on this dad’s ears.

But I will have to admit there is one use of the word, “my” that has yet to become tiresome — “my daddy.”

It may have started when I picked him up on his first day at his new school a couple of weeks ago.

After a fractious morning when he cried as his mother and I left him in a new and unfamiliar place, it was refreshing and heartening to see him run to Dad with open arms exclaiming “my daddy” over and over again.

That sweet image would have made for a great Father’s Day card.

Thursday, I read the words on the card my parents sent.

“Seeing you as a dad, raising a beautiful family of your own is a reminder of just how wonderful and amazing it all is.”

Amazing it is, indeed.

Ben Hillyer is the design editor of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com