0812Lane

I realize that these pictures I keep posting of my daughter aren't very active photos. but hang in there with us, she's growing and growing and I just know one of these days I'll be looking back thru these and won't believe my eyes when she's crawling and walking and talking and reading.
Glenn Beck wrote this and I think it speaks volumes that we just need to take in every thing all the time and do the best we can so we don't miss a thing as we love on our kiddos.

Sometimes we lose perspective. Sometimes we can be looking at the wrong things, just like I think grandma was looking at yesterday. Gee. You know, I've had -- the last 12 months as a dad has been difficult for me, the last really 18 months, been really difficult as a dad. And someday I... someday. Oh, yeah, kids, I'm writing a book. Someday I'll share some of the stuff with you that I've learned, but I tell you it's -- the biggest, the hardest part about being a dad I think, and maybe I'm the only one, the hardest thing about being a dad is every time I walk away from my kids -- because I have other things to do. I mean, you know, I'm still in the house or whatever, but I can be down flat on my belly playing with the trains, I can be with my youngest daughter playing with her dollhouse and, "Oh, look, the baby is... oh, look, she's now in the kitchen." (Laughing). I can play this for hours. We can all be sitting around playing Candyland or Skip-Bo or whatever it is we're playing or I could just be sitting last night like I was in between my eldest daughter and my wife watching The Office. But at some point whether it's just time to go to bed because it's 11:00 and I've got to get up early, or I have to go to work or I just have to go into the other room and finish something that I'm working on there, every time I get up, I think to myself, "What is more important? Where are you going?"

Sometimes we're there, however, and we still miss what we're supposed to see. You don't necessarily have to be away from whatever it is to miss it. Sometimes we're there in the room and we don't say, "I love you." We don't say the words that need to be said because we just don't even think about it until it's time to think about it. But even though I've personally been struggling with being a dad, even though probably every other time I would have walked away and as I closed the door and said to my son like I did last night as he was sitting there in the warm glow of his fire truck nightlight and I say, "See you tomorrow, Raphe. How much do I love you?" And he whispers from his bed, "From here to the sun and back again." I usually close the door and think to myself, "Where are you going? Why didn't you spend two more minutes." But this week, it was on Tuesday, my wife said, "I went into Raphe's room and woke him up, got him dressed. He was putting on pants and they were just way too short. He's in another growth sport." She said, "I wanted to write you just to tell you that I said we have to get rid of these pants, Raphe, you're growing out of them. And he said, yep, I'm grown up; I'm going to be big. And when I'm big, I'm going to be a really good dad just like my daddy." While I missed that moment myself, had my lovely wife share it with me, truth is I've been in the room the whole time that he's been thinking that. Sometimes we don't see what we're supposed to see because we're busy just thinking other things, even though we're laying down, playing with the trains, reading a story or kneeling by his bedside as he tells you about, "In the big city the firemen have boats."