One bacon, egg, and cheese bagel later

Five years ago, my wife’s water broke. It was 2:30 AM. Two hours later, she woke me from my slumber, and said calmly, “Get your clothes on, I’m in labor. We can stop by McDonald’s drive thru on the way to the hospital so you can get something to eat first.”

My wife knows how I get when I haven’t had my Snickers bar.

One bacon, egg, and cheese bagel with a side of hash browns and an orange juice—and a push here and there—later, our daughter Annabelle was born.

Today she turned five years old.

I’m the parent and she is the child, but I’ve learned far more from her in five years than she may ever learn from me in a lifetime.

She has taught me what a father’s love for his daughter is all about.

When she tells me she loves me, nothing else matters. My day, no matter how rotten or stressful it may have been, is rotten no more.

Whenever she sings, no matter how out of key it may be at times, it is music to my ears. It is the voice of a tiny being that calms my soul I could listen to on repeat.

We are alike in so many ways, it drives me a little batty sometimes. Mostly, when getting ready for pre-school every morning and trying to leave the house on time.

She is a creative. She is a troubleshooter. She lives in her own dream world. She gets in the zone and you aren’t pulling her from the zone. And, she is officially the slowest person on earth — even I’m faster. Though my wife may debate that.

Karma backhands me on a daily basis and laughs in my face. “Your turn,” Karma says. But Karma has also given me a new best friend — with pigtails.

“Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.”

– by Joseph Addison

You can’t read just yet, B-Belle; but one day, you will. And when you read this, thank you for enriching my life with a love I never knew until you were born this day five years ago. Happy birthday!

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