I’ve made it pretty clear before, I worry a lot about my little girl and how easily the world can beat down the confidence that she displays every day. She is truly beautiful and completely innocent. Let me explain…

If you don’t know, my daughter is extremely outgoing and knows no boundaries when it comes to ages. For example, she loves on her big cousin like they are the same age – she doesn’t know any different. So when the neighborhood girls were out selling lemonade, my baby girl wanted to be out there with her. Jade is 4, these girls and 7, 8 and 9 – in other words, Jade is still rolling with training wheels while these girls cruise around on their cool mountain bikes.

Does Jadyn care? Nope…

So today, while the girls were out again, Jade ran outside to play with them. All was well until the girls started playing hide-and-seek and Jadyn was it. So what did the older girls do? They decided they were bored with the game and went inside while my baby girl was outside still looking for them (not sure if they were trying to ditch her or not, but we’re guessing so). My wife found her behind our neighbor’s house still searching for her new “friends” that were “hiding”….

It broke my heart to hear what had happened – and I get the same kind of feeling even as I type this. Jadyn has pretty thick skin, and I hope it stays that way as she didn’t realize that the older girls had ditched her – she just thought they were really good at the game – but one of these days she’ll put the pieces together and she’ll break down…and I’ll be right here to help her understand that she is a part of something bigger…

I can’t control the world, but I can control the type of environment my kids grow up in. This is a perfect example of that environment. Brent and Tam do a great job with their kids and despite the worldly troubles that kids find themselves in, their daughter fought through it and hung on to something bigger than her. That is the kind of hope I find myself hanging on to while my baby girl goes out playing with the girls in our neighborhood….

As it typical of most days, my wife was giving me the “run down” of the days events as I was sitting with her for dinner.  I love hearing about her day and all the crazy things the kids got into.  Well today she painted an interesting picture of how my daughter views the roles of a Man and a Woman when it comes to work….

Jadyn wanted to call one of my wife’s female friends.  My wife had to tell her that she couldn’t call her because she was at work.  My daughter thought she was joking as she laughingly replied, “Mom, she isn’t at work.  Only Daddy’s go to work.”

Wow.  My wife quickly explained that a lot of Moms and Dads have to work, and that she should feel lucky that her mom is able to stay home with her.

As parents, we don’t want to pigeon hole our kids in anyway, but it is clear that Jade sees work as the responsibility of the Dad because that is the world she exists in.  My mom stayed at home, Andrea’s mom stayed at home, and now Andrea stays at home.  Who knows what Jadyn will end up doing, but it forced me to think through the fact that Jadyn is really sifting through life right now.  She is drawing conclusions and developing her own opinions on how things should work.  She is watching ME and developing an idea of how fathers treat their children, and how husbands treat their wives.

She is growing up way too fast….

5 Kids. 1 Adult.  That’s my beautiful bride right in the middle of it all.  I can’t handle that kind of chaos. My wife can.  She organizes the parties, plans the meal, sets up the tables and makes sure my little girl has the best 4th birthday part ever.

If I were running the show, Jadyn’s birthday party would have been at a movie theatre.

4 years ago, my life changed completely.  My first child as born – a beautiful little girl.  At that moment, I knew I had to grow up fast and never looked back (ok, I looked back a lot that year).  Jadyn has been one of the coolest things to come along in my life and I look forward to watching her continue to grow.  What a beautiful little girl.

I love you, Jadyn.  Happy Birthday!

Tonight after dinner, I had to do something for the very first time – confront my daughter about something she did, and then listen to her lie about it.  Here is what happened…

I installed landscaping lights in the front of our house, but have moved a few of the lights around after burying them, so there are a few patches of peaking wire hanging out from the landscaping rocks.  On my way to Church Council meeting last night, I noticed that someone had pulled the entire wire out from under the ground.  So I naturally assumed my daughter was involved and approached her about it….

Me – “Jadyn…can you come here?  Jadyn, did you pull out the wire in Daddy’s landscaping?”
Jadyn – “No”
Me – “Well if you didn’t, who did?”
Jadyn – “Ron and Paul”
Me – “Who is Ron and Paul”
Jadyn – “Workers that were working on the wire”

By this time, I can hear my wife laughing out loud and she can see where this is going.  I bring Jadyn into my office, sit her down on a chair and look her in the eye and say…

Me – “Jadyn, you know its wrong to not tell the truth, right?”
Jadyn – “Right”
Me – “So tell me the truth, did you pull Daddy’s wire out”
Jadyn – “Nope”

By this time I start laughing out loud right along with my wife.  As I start laughing, so too does my daughter.  I had to pull it together and FAST!  I finally was able to connect with Jadyn, and she owned up to the fact that the neighbor girl and her did it but the journey to that point was a tough one!

The Summer Blew By.

I mean REALLY blew by.

This summer was much different than last summer, mostly because we didn’t have to spend a month in the hospital with our little guy.  We kept really busy – both personally and professionally.  As a result, my blogging has sucked.  In fact, even my father-in-law commented on the lack of activity here this past weekend.

To be honest, I haven’t really missed it much.  Sure, it’s great to get some thoughts out in a different kind of environment, but it’s also good to be so busy living life that there isn’t enough time to reflect on it.

The last few weekends I’ve done a lot of that, and I’m sure some great posts will come out of that, but for now, know that my summer was freaking awesome.  How was yours?

Today’s example: the baby gate. We’ve had this freaking thing for months, I still don’t know how to work this thing. In fact, I don’t even know how to get it “off” the stairs….

Now please don’t take this post as a confession to drinking as a result of good marketing. I’m simply commenting on this industry’s ability to create great marketing campaigns. I admit to never having tried either of the products below and do not want this post to be a push for the products either.

My wife and sister-in-law are the same way. They all have that water gene. My wife was close to mastering wakeboarding, wakesurfing, and will have sky skiing down next.

This past weekend, I got to watch the Heffelfinger-water-gene come out in my beautiful little niece, Lex. Take a look at some rockstar edits of Dad and his little girl wakeboarding.