Original Post 2009-11-12
Ok so today is my little girl’s birthday and as she turns a ripe young 8 I’m choosing to push aside everything else and focus on the joy of being her daddy. I remember very clearly the day that we found out that she was going to be a girl. That night I annoyed the heck out of my wife because right then and there she had to be named. I got on one of those websites with the 10,000 (I think they’re at 100k now) and started my list. I was up until 2am and I wasn’t going to stop until she had a name. I’d mention what it is but I promised myself not to place that anywhere on the net. Let’s just say her name is not Frank.
My wife made the comment this morning that had she been born the day she started labor that she would have been a veteran’s day baby which would have been cool but then again I thought that she’s so cool she needs her own day. After 40 hours of labor she came by caesarian. The poor doctor was so short that she had to stand on a platform to dig her arms into my wife to pull our daughter out. It was worth it because the first time I laid eyes on her was life-changing. I went into the room one person and came out another one.
There is no joy on this earth greater than that of being a daddy. I love how goofy and silly she can be while at the same time wise and beautiful. When she looks up at me with those big brown eyes my day is done and whatever it was that happened that day just doesn’t seem to be that important.
We have a small tradition of ours which is that the night before her birthday she and I go out to dinner by ourselves. We laugh, have fun (last night we played blow the wad of paper across the table soccer) and at the end of the night I tell her what she means to me, how beautiful she is, and how grateful I am to have her in my life. She always blushes. That’s how I know it sticks. Yes, of course I tell her that all the time but it carries more weight when we’re sitting down at dinner and I tell her these things at an appointed time.
I’ve heard it said that you come to realize what love is and how much you want it when you get married. I contend that you realize not just how much you’re capable of loving when you have a child but how deep that love goes. It really does go so deep that you can’t see the bottom.
I like it that way.