Skip to main content

What I've learned from my daughter

My daughter turns 1 today.
She's been in my life for a year, and as I've shared with many of you already, this has been the best year of my life (just ahead of the five years of marriage I've shared with my wife, she likes to remind me, and the 37 years of life I owe to my angel mother; I can never forget the women in my life because they have forged who I am and who I will be).
And in the year I've been graced with Willow, I've learned a tremendous amount from my daughter.
Without Willow I wouldn't know:
  • That I should light up with joy whenever I see a dog or horse or bird. Such creatures are a marvel, and I owe them my good mood and admiration.
  • That I should point at something and tell others to look.
  • That I should shake with excitement when I see something that excites me. This is worth celebrating, folks.
  • That I should celebrate my happiness with the world.
  • That I should rejoice when a stranger approaches me (especially an ugly old man) because everyone deserves my smile and my time. And I deserve theirs.
  • That I should wake up with a smile.
  • That I should enjoy the time I have to play because play time is fleeting. Not enough of us play enough. Besides, playing strengthens the soul.
  • That I should play because how else can I explore.
  • That I should play because how else can I learn.
  • That I should pursue every chance to explore and to learn.
  • That I should find the pleasure in the simple things (banging on a pot CAN be fun just as sitting under a tree in a green meadow can open up the world to you).
  • That I should see the entertainment that's in the world around me, and that I am a part of that.
  • That I should accept that it's OK to concentrate on the things I like.
  • That I should take a nap when I can because naps rejuvenate the soul and brighten your day.
  • That I should laugh often and heartily because laughs make the world a happier place.
  • That I can never have enough kisses. They give you a spark of energy and happiness.
  • That I can never have enough hugs. They calm your fretfulness and worry.
  • That sometimes I need to cry over spilled milk (then promptly accept a hug).
  • That sometimes I should not cry over spilled milk because messes aren't worth the stress (and sometimes they can be downright fun).
  • That I should pace myself.
  • That I should expect to fall sometimes and be ready for it and ready to dust off.
  • That I won't be ready for falls all the time, so I'll need my friends and family to help me up.
  • That I should cherish my time with friends and family because I owe them the love they give to me, and I owe them my happiness.
  • That I am happy.
  • And lastly, that I cannot love Willow's mother too much. She is the angel who brought light to my world, and she brought Willow to my life, and to yours.
All this, and more, I've learned from my baby girl.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adding a splash to the winter gray

Willow, Mommy and I went to the Y's pool on Sunday to take advantage of our membership and to do something summery in this dreary and cold weather. We had so much fun swimming and splashing, Willow and I went back on Tuesday. On Sunday, surprisingly, nobody else was at the pool, and the lifeguard seemed resigned to having to sit boringly in her stand. I have no problem with having an entire pool and a lifeguard all to myself, but, again, I was surprised nobody else was there, except for a few exercisers coming and going to use the steam room and the sauna (and a couple of guys hopped in the whirlpool for a few minutes). When Willow and I went on Tuesday, several people were in the pool, but they quickly scattered when the tot and I entered the pool. Maybe their time in the pool had come to a planned end. Maybe they didn't want to be in the water with someone who might pee or poop at any moment. After the initial scattering a couple of men came into the pool area and swam qui...
Post a Comment
Read more

Among chaos, peace

I want to show you two pictures, but a little later. First I want to introduce you to chaos (or at least what I consider to be chaos) via a handy, dandy list: I am sitting at a laptop, pounding out a blog's letters as quickly as I can think of them. The laptop is only three months old, yet some of the keys stick sometimes. These sticky keys are the ghostly reminders that a toddler's sticky fingers have been pounding on them. Four loads of laundry lie in various states of "unfinish." One load is wet. One load is wrinkling. Two loads await their spins. A fifth load already has been tucked away in drawers, cabinets and closets (then untucked by a toddler then tucked again by me). Cups, plates and bowls hang for dear life to a hastily stacked pile of dirty dishes in the sink while a clean set of dishes sits in the dishwasher. A pile of pictures and postcards blanket the floor beside the desk in the guest room. This was the work of the sticky fingers that pounded on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer zips on by

I guess it's official. This morning, we witnessed the kiddos hopping on school buses and heading to school. That marks the end of summer, I suppose, and the end of summer seems to come a little earlier every year (even though the actual warmness of the weather keeps creeping later and later; are we going to have winter this year, anyone?). Call me silly, but I like to think of the end of summer as that day on the calendar that falls in the middle of September, after my birthday (my birthday, Sept. 16, is in summer, but it has never, ever felt that way even though I know it's always hot on my birthday). This marks my 39th summer if you count that first one I was born during in 1974, and I'm sure many of them seemed really long or really short depending on how old I was. For me, it seemed like the summers of my childhood lasted FOREVER. Now it seems like they zip by. In a flash. Especially this one. It's been a busy one, filled with lots of travels, family visits and...
Post a Comment
Read more