Letters to Our Children | Daddy’s Girl

I am both honored and excited to be participating in a special blog circle called Letters to Our Children along with several other incredibly talented photographers.  Each month I will write a letter to my lovely daughter, as I attempt to capture her personality and spirit, while documenting this special and fleeting time of her life.  As time seems to perpetually increase in its speed, I strive to find a way to articulate just how much I love her, and to hopefully make time pause, even if just for a few moments, during these moments of reflection on my sweet girl.

My Bella,

June is a big month for your daddy, with his birthday and Father’s Day.  So, it seemed fitting to focus this month’s letter on your special relationship with your dada.  You are absolutely a daddy’s girl – from head to toe.  Your daddy is your whole world, and you adore him.

You’ve been this way since birth.  When you were a baby, my friends would talk to me about how they wished their babies would go to their dads just for an hour so they could have a little break.  We kind of had the opposite problem.  Your daddy has always been a calming presence for you.  When you were a baby, if your daddy was home, you longed to be in his arms.   And you weren’t afraid to let us know!  I know that he didn’t mind though.  You have had him wrapped around your little finger since he laid eyes on you.  He adores you as much as you adore him.   I have so many memories of you in your daddy’s arms, curled up on his chest, as you both napped together on the couch.

As you grew older, your bond only strengthened.   You still love to be with your daddy.  You are his little sidekick.  Your eyes light up if he asks you to help him with something.  You gladly go with him on excursions to Home Depot, or the hardware store, or the homebrew shop…   At home, you two have the silliest games that you play together.  Toss-the-pink-ball-high-in-air:  a classic dada game that you’ve been playing in our living room with the vaulted ceilings since you were just toddling around.  Or go-fast-like-Mater (hilariously, it was always go fast like Mater, not like Lightning), which consists of you chasing your dada in circles around the house until you both are about to pass out.  I don’t think it matters what you do, as long as you are by his side.

You, my dear, are a giggle box.  You love to laugh, and we love to hear your adorable little giggle.  It helps that you have a hilarious daddy.  When you are with him, the two of you laugh and giggle constantly.

You are a lot like your daddy in many ways.  You are a thinker.  You wonder.  You want to know what everything is called, and why things are the way they are.  You are curious about how things work.  Your favorite question is “Why?”  Your daddy, our practical, analytical, inventive engineer, likes to say that you “have the knack” (the engineering knack, that is).  Although you are adamant that you want to be a teacher, or, as of yesterday, a heart doctor, I do wonder if maybe your daddy is right, and you might end up as an engineer, just like your dada.

To see you with him makes my heart full of love.  I have loved your daddy for a very long time, but to see him with you, and to see how much he loves you, makes me love him more than I ever imagined was possible.  In your world, your daddy really did hang the moon (your moon friend!), and the stars, and he likely put the sun in the sky as well.  He knows the answer to every question – and my curious girl, you have many of them!  In short, he is the center of your world.  You are a lucky little girl because you have the best daddy on this earth.  And I am equally lucky to be married to him.

I love both of you more than you know!

Next in our circle is Holly Strebel of Holly Strebel Photography.   Please head over to her blog to read her sweet letter to her little ones!