Page 46 of A Very Grumpy Father's Day
I turn Ciara around to face me and just stare at her amazing chubby face. “Hi,” I say. She grins and reaches out to bop me on the chin. I do have an amazing chin, but now I’m wishing I’d shaved because what if my stubble irritates the skin on her little fingers? “How was your day?” I lean in a little closer. She grabs my nose and laughs, squeezing her big, shiny eyes shut.
I am so in love with this baby. It makes my heart hurt, but in a different way than it hurt when I was falling for her mother. When Maddie was pretending to be my girlfriend, part of the pain came from knowing that I’d do anything for her if she asked me to but I couldn’t tell her it was okay to ask. With Ciara, and with Maddie now, of course, I don’t have to hold anything back. They both know I would do anything for them. I just hate that I can’t always give this girl what she wants because she can’ttellme what she wants yet. And one day she’ll be able to talk but she won’t want to talk to me or ask me for anything because she’ll think I’m lame. And then she’ll be off on her own and I won’t know what she’s up to most of the time.
But right now, I can just love her and let her slap my face and be so damn happy she cares enough to pull my hair or tug at my shirt.
Right now, I can just say, “Hey there, Ciara. Thanks for letting me be your daddy.”
She makes kind of a hiccup-y sound as she stares at me. “Dah dahhhh,” she says. Very distinctly.
“What did you say? Did you sayda-da?”
She laughs at me. “Dah dah!”
Holy. Shit.
“Maddie!” I kiss my baby on the cheek. “She said it!”
Maddie comes running in. “What? What happened?”
“She saidda-da. Say it again, baby.”
She shakes her head and then says, “Dah dah!” and then rubs her eye and giggles.
Maddie immediately tears up and then sits down beside me. “Dec.”
“I can’t believe it. She’s sayingda-da, right?”
“Yes.” She rubs my back. “I’ve been trying to get her to say it for a couple of weeks. I mean, I don’t know if that counts as saying a word and she might not know what she’s saying, but she definitely saidda-da.” Now my wife is crying again.
I can’t decide which reason for her crying is more exciting to me, so it’s a very weird tie.
I kiss Maddie’s cheek. “I love you. So much.”
“Happy Da-Da Day, honey.”
It is.
It really is.
