daddy-daughter-weekend, day 1

I’ve had my eye on today’s date on the calendar for months. Deanna is on the east coast for three days and I’m taking care of jane. I don’t mind spending time with jane at all. I love it. when Deanna is around, jane is deanna’s girl. but when its just Janie and I, she talks to me a lot more and we always seem to have a lot of fun. Deanna does a lot of things that I never really do- like give jane a bath, make her food, put her to bed, and do her hair. so with Deanna out of town, I’m learning a bunch of new things.

today was day 1, and it went fairly well. I got up early and had a shower, and jane was up at 7. yesterday Deanna had a little suitcase on wheels out, and jane filled it with toys and carted it all over the house. this morning, that was the first thing on her mind. I had to break it to her that mom had taken it. she had breakfast, watched some cartoons, then we were off on our day of fun. I stopped by my office to get some books and files to work on, then we went to the discovery museum. it was insane and filled with children. we left after an hour.
next we went to the “dollhouse store” to get some chairs for toy-dad and toy-jane to sit in. then we went home for lunch and some quiet rest time.

after 3 we went to the mall just to look at little suitcases, and I wasn’t getting out of the store without the pink ariel one. she is in love with it.

we had dinner, and then it was story time. jane really knows how to keep story time going. every morning I invite her to hang out and talk about things. normally, she’s more interested in playing. but tonight, she interrupted me each time I turned the page to tell me her favorite thing to play with, or her favorite part of the day, or a memory from when she was a baby, or just to tell me that she loved me and loved being my kid. each time I turned the page she said, “oh- and want to know something else…?”

today was a little stressful, but also emotional. sometimes I just watch my girl as she is playing, or telling me a story, or while she’s eating and I well up and freak out over how fragile she is and how messed up I would be if anything happened to her or to Deanna. I think that I just want to lock them away from any and every danger or freeze time to preserve them forever. I’ve been praying a lot over the last 36 hours too.

day one was a good one. deanna’s plane landed safely and jane is safely tucked in her bed. now if I can just handle tomorrow…

God is love.
-rev-rob