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Even to this very day, I still sometimes can\u2019t believe that I\u2019m a dad.\u00a0 I usually have these thoughts in the mornings, when I\u2019m watching my kids eat breakfast, and my mind thinks back to when they were but little babies that drank from bottles, and eventually fed by spoon, and then finger foods, and here they are not only eating with utensils, they have opinions<\/em>, on what breakfasts I make them that they do like, or if they\u2019re one of their pissy morning moods, and whatever I\u2019ve made is automatically putrid trash.<\/span><\/p>\n But sometimes I just quietly watch them while they eat, and I think back to my mom doing the same thing to me, and me thinking \u201cwhaaaat???\u201d whenever I caught her staring.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember what her answer ever was, if she even answered in the first place, but being a parent myself, I\u2019ve come to understand why she was doing it in the first place, because I have to imagine she was probably thinking the same thing I think whenever I just watch my kids, that it\u2019s still<\/em> amazing that we have kids and that we are parents; bonus if the kids themselves are pretty good ones.<\/span><\/p>\n Today marks year six for my eldest, the one that started me on this path of being a parent, and like I stated above, there are times where I still can\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 Life as a childless adult feels like such an alien, foreign concept that I\u2019m often flabbergasted when I see people who live such uncomplicated lives for basically nobody but themselves for the most part.\u00a0 Sure, I\u2019d be lying if I said I didn\u2019t miss the freedom, frivolity and sheer ease of not having to feel responsible for the life of young children, but there are times where there\u2019s nothing like witnessing your own children grow into the world, and feeling somewhat responsible for helping shape them into the people they\u2019re becoming.<\/span><\/p>\n Few things make me laugh more than hearing my children using some of the more common phrases that I use, like for example, #1 was getting tired of explaining some Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> thing to #2, and she bust out a how many times do I have to tell you<\/em>, and I lost it right where I was sitting, because there\u2019s absolutely no doubt where she picked that saying up from.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s not the best thing to be picking up to reflect on me, but it\u2019s just an example of just how perceptive and how much of my kid<\/em> my kids are capable of being, and seldom does a day go by where one or both of my kids don\u2019t bring an avalanche of joy to my heart at some point.<\/span><\/p>\n And just like that, my eldest is six freaking years old.<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s smart as heck, wants to know damn near everything she can about Pok\u00e9mon, still enjoys reading with dad, and appears to be quite the math whiz, based on the fact that I can count on one hand how many times I\u2019ve seen an incorrect answer on her math worksheets throughout the entire school year so far.<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s very observant, picks up on everything, and has the marvelously beautiful imagination that only a 5-6 year old can have, whether she expresses it through drawing, coloring or making things out of whatever she can get her hands on; Legos, wooden blocks, MagnaTiles.\u00a0 I love building things to instruction with her, but it\u2019s most fun when we disassemble a Lego kit, and then she\u2019s free to build whatever she wants, and when she\u2019s done she always has these elaborate backstories to the structures she\u2019s building, and the figures that are living in them.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tidy up her room in the afternoon, and by the time bed time has come, she\u2019s built an entire town of structures, with origin stories for everyone that\u2019s living in it, and I don\u2019t remember being nearly as imaginative as she is now when I was six.<\/span><\/p>\n What I really love is that she still wants to be picked up and carried by dad all the time.\u00a0 There was one moment I had thought to myself at what age does it seem weird to be doing that, but it didn\u2019t last long because I remembered that there would one day come a day where either she doesn\u2019t want to be held any more, or for whatever reason I\u2019ll be unable to do it, so I put that silly thought to bed, and I\u2019m happy to pick up and carry my kid whenever she asks, because I\u2019d rather get in all my carries and hugs in while I still can.<\/span><\/p>\n The point is, happiest of birthdays to my eldest child.\u00a0 It\u2019s been the greatest honor of my life to be your dad, and I love you (and sissy and mama) with every fiber of my being, and the simple objective of my life has always remained the same, to be the best dad possible to you, always.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even to this very day, I still sometimes can\u2019t believe that I\u2019m a dad.\u00a0 I usually have these thoughts in the mornings, when I\u2019m watching my kids eat breakfast, and my mind thinks back to when they were but little babies that drank from bottles, and eventually fed by spoon, and then finger foods, and … Continue reading Year six of forever<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67,193,71,192,83,99],"class_list":["post-51111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-birthday","tag-dad","tag-famiry","tag-kids","tag-observations","tag-reminiscing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51113,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51111\/revisions\/51113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}