When You Miss Me (Paperback) newly tagged "parenting"

When I talk about myself, I can't help but talk about my wonderful daughter. I remember her laughing as a baby and it feels like just yesterday. We were eating dinner and she was in her rocker. She was just minding her own business and all of a sudden she started laughing. She was only a few months old at the time and I remember thinking, "Why would she be laughing? What could she possibly find funny?"

And throughout her life have been some of the most adorable things I could ever imagine...

We used to make pancakes in the mornings before she turned old enough to know that was actually work. She stirred the batter.

She draws pictures and brings them to me excited that she drew a whale in the sky behind a palm tree, her and I holding hands beside the tree that wasn't in my yard (I didn't have a yard at the time)...etc.

She makes the grocery list when we go shopping. One time we laughed so hard in the middle of the store because even she didn't know what one item was supposed to be.

At one time, her plan was to work at McDonald's while she put herself through law school. That way she would get a free lunch at her favorite "restaurant." She has quite a few years left before even going to college.

My arm fell asleep one time while she was sleeping in it. I tried to move and she wouldn't let me, "Hey daddy, hey!"

I remember the first time I decided to draw a real face for her instead of the smiley faces she loved, "It bootiful daddy!"

She would point at her eye, then her heart and then at me saying, "I...love...YOU!" Then she would jump up and down clapping.

Ah, there are so many things. I wish my mind was a digital camera. I'd post every memory.

Now, she makes random videos with her new laptop, she swims all day in the pool and she leaves her cell phone behind on our times to be together. But with all the growing up she has done, she's still that little kid inside who wants to wrestle with daddy, sit on his lap and cuddle up with him to watch a movie. She's always going to be my little princess no matter how big she gets.

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