Fatherly thoughts: Two and terrific!

Today, Laura officially turns 2 years old. Stephanie and I couldn't be happier. She's made parenting a lot of fun and a tremendous blessing with her smile, her sweet personality and all the ways she touches our lives. Thank you, Laura, for being such a wonderful addition to our family. We love you. Below, is a little story from our recent adventures.

On Fridays I take Laura to nursery school for half a day. I'm responsible for getting her ready. It can be quite a challenge ... including putting her hair up in her signature ponytail. Thank the Lord for Sesame Street to keep her occupied. I've gotten to where it only takes me two or three tries where her hair looks semi-presentable. The other day I finished it on the first try, and we were looking like we were going to be ahead of schedule.

Steph had helped pick out her outfit for me before she left for work. It was one of Laura's nicer pink outfits, and I was careful to put a bib on Laura when she was eating breakfast. Too often I forget but not this week.

It was looking like a smooth morning.

As I opened the front door to load the car, I remembered that Steph had put a fresh coat of paint on the porch the night before to touch it up for Laura's birthday party. I touched the wood to see if it was dry. It had a slight stick, but overall, it felt dry. I decided to walk softly on it to save time, instead of going around back. I told Laura to wait at the door. She usually is pretty good about staying on the porch and just watching.

As I finished putting her school bag in the car, I could hear her singing "twinkle, twinkle" ... or something like that ... as she walked down the steps. I figured this was no big deal since the porch felt dry. As she stumbled along in the yard closer toward me, a dark something appeared on the back of her pants. My first thought was that she had slipped in the grass and got a little dirt on her.

I took a closer look and realized ... I was soooooooooooo dead.

Laura had brown paint all over the back of her pink flowery pants. I knew right then that Stain Stick, Oxiclean or whatever super stain-fighting formula wasn't going to save me this time. The first words out of my mouth were, "Laura, your mother is going to kill me!"

I ran her back inside, lightly scraped off the paint that had gotten on her leg and sprayed her pants with some stain stuff and put them in a sink full of water ... knowing full well there was no hope for them. They were dead on arrival. Laura pointed out that her pants had a "boo boo" or "poo poo" ... something like that.

I took her upstairs and grabbed the first thing I could find ... jeans (that were a little too long), a blue T-shirt with fish on it and kept her pink bow in (I still contend the bow went with the pink fish on her shirt). I made pretty good time changing her into another outfit ... and we were out the door. When I called Stephanie to tell her what had happened she was rather understanding ... until I told her what I had changed Laura into. She wanted me to go back and change Laura into a nicer outfit, but we were already late and too far down the road. We still got to her school with a couple minutes to spare ... Yea, daddy!

Laura, I'm still learning as I go. Thankfully, daddies get a pass for their lack of fashion sense ... at least for the most part.