An old saying states, ‘A woman becomes a mother when she gets pregnant. A man becomes a father when his baby is born.’

For weedy sea dragons, however, this may not be the case. The male of the species carries the eggs, making Father’s Day extra special for one sea dragon at the Georgia Aquarium. The colorful creature, which resembles a character from a children’s book or cartoon, carries about 70 fertilized eggs on his tale. Papa Dragon’s expected due date is mid-July.

Weedy sea dragons typically grow to about 18 inches in length, and live in waters up to 50 meters deep along the southern coastline of Australia. The species are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of threatened species. The species? future is at stake due pollution and population growth in its native waters.

Experts are not sure what environmental factors encourage weedy sea dragons to mate, so mating in captivity is rare. The survival rate for sea dragons in captivity, however, is 60 percent. The Georgia Aquarium recently made some changes in the sea dragons’ lighting and habitat, which may have sparked pro-creation between two of the aquarium’s seven sea dragons.

Only a handful of species exist where the males carry the eggs, but, believe it or not, the concept is not unheard of amongst human beings, either. Earlier this spring, a Babies Online blogger reported that a transgender man in Oregon was carrying his unborn daughter.

The sea dragon, however, won’t have to face any of the challenges or prejudices the pregnant Oregon man has encountered, but will simply swim around with the eggs, hatched by the mother, firmly attached to his tail. Trust me, this definitely beats going through a hot summer with 20-plus extra pounds and an expanding belly. Interestingly, 34-year-old Thomas Beattie is also due this summer.

Babies Online wishes all fathers and expectant dads’regardless of their specific role in the pregnancy?a happy father’s day!

While I barely got a greeting on my first Mother’s Day from my husband this past May (sniff), I don’t intend to let my husband’s first Father’s Day go unmentioned as retaliation. Yes, I’ll probably get him a card, and treat him to a dinner or lunch. I also scoured the Internet looking for special Father’s Day songs we could sing to him come Father’s Day morning. Well, I’ll sing to him and our daughter will probably squeal being only 10 mos. and all.

I found a great site that has lyrics suited to Father’s Day but to the tunes of classics like Twinkle Twinkle Star or other well-known songs. Here’s an example:

To the tune of (take me out to the ballgame.)
oh i love my daddy.
and my daddy loves me.
he picks me up and gives me piggy back rides,
we run, jump and play, oh we have a good time.
oh i really love my daddy,
let’s shout three times, hooray,
oh i love, love love my daddy so especially on father’s day

It’s quite cute, isn’t it? I think I’ll try to make up my own song as well. Let’s give it a try:

Daddy, Daddy you’re funny
You make goofy faces at me
Makes me laugh and makes me smile
Cuddles me more than once a while
Daddy, Daddy you’re so sweet
Having you is such a treat!

I am proud to say that I have a husband who is a sucker for all these mushy cute stuff! It would be great to have our daughter memorize songs that honor fathers as she grows up. I can’t help but be reminded of the fact that restaurants and shops are buzzing when Mother’s Day rolls around, but is business as usual on Father’s Day. I hope to teach my Dad to honor her father, and recognize his contribution, as we all should for our deserving fathers.

Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 15. (Who am I kidding? It’s men who forget days like this, right? All mothers already know that it’s Sunday, and probably already have a handmade card and craft all prepared.) Therefore, like most mass-marketed so-called “greeting card” holidays, we are, as consumers, literally inundated with “best gifts for dad” lists and advertisements. These lists have prompted several dad bloggers that I read on a regular basis to write posts in response.

Some of the dads are stay-at-home dads (SAHD) and others are (like me) dads who work outside the home. However, the majority of them say they want the same thing for Father’s Day: time away from their kids and their wife, a couple of hours to themselves. (Most also mention some sort of private activity with their wives once the kids are asleep. Since this is a G-rated site, I will leave it to the reader to determine what exactly that is.)

I find myself in strong disagreement with this position (the time alone, not the private/wife time). While perhaps a SAHD wants a “break” from his normal day, and the dads with jobs outside the home want some at-home time without the kids, Father’s Day is not the day to do this. As strange as it may sound, Father’s Day is not about fathers; it’s about children (and perhaps mothers) celebrating their fathers.

Kids love parties. They love any day that they can “make special”. So, telling them that a particular day is set aside for them to make their daddy feel special, and then telling them that they can’t spend that day with their daddy makes no sense to them. They want to show their daddy how much they love him, how much they appreciate him, how special he is to them. They can’t do that if daddy is downtown at the used record store or in the garage with a beer and the baseball game on the radio.

If I need time to myself to decompress, or just recharge my proverbial batteries, I do it another night. Doing it on Father’s Day isn’t fair to your kids, who want to celebrate their father.

For the dads: do you feel the best gift you can receive on Father’s Day is alone time? If so, why? If not, what is the best gift? For the moms: what are your thoughts on this? Did you want alone time for Mother’s Day?