I have a confession to make. I'm in love with another woman besides my wife. As a matter of fact, I'm in love with three. They all have their different quirks about them. I wouldn't trade them for any other girls in this world. They are my daughters. The journey with the two older girls has been fun, frustrating, rewarding, glamorous, disheartening, and incredible. The good has outweighed the bad and it's not even close.
Being a dad to a high schooler has been interesting to say the least, particularly when she expresses interest in a boy who happens to be in the very class that I teach at her school (so is Audrey!). I try so hard to sound impressed when she tells me about all the different boys whom she found out have a crush on her, the whole time I want to beg her to talk to me about anything else. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.
Addy is the most consistent 10 year old that I have ever met and I mean that in a good way and bad way. We always know exactly what to expect from her. She is most definitely not going to make her room look like a tank drove through it. She will by all means not clean it up until we make her. She will definitely take a good 4 hours to clean up this mess when Ashley or me could accomplish this task in less than 30 minutes.
Some of these things will change over time. Some I'm not sure ever will (Dear God, bless the man whom Addison marries and shares a room with. May he be wealthy enough to hire a maid. Amen). However, there is a new girl who has overwhelmed me for the past year. She goes by Millie and she calls me "da da" currently. She has blue eyes and somehow reddish hair that sticks up like it's a magnet. She is the happiest baby I have ever seen. Everything is wonderful and she never wants to go to sleep because she doesn't want to miss a thing. While my generation or Millenials are noted for living by the term "YOLO" Generation Z (those ages 7-22) are noted for living by a term that most of them live by but few ever say, "FOMO" or Fear Of Missing Out. This describes Millie to a tee.
Two weeks from tomorrow, Millie will turn a year old. She is our final and youngest child. She befriends everyone whom she makes eye contact with despite being virtually unable to speak. Perhaps her favorite person to be around (obviously besides her mother) is probably her big brother, Gatlin. This is ironic to us because in his quest to love her and be affectionate towards her, he beats her up. I promise he means well, we've just had to be very diligent about explaining to him repeatedly what the word "gentle" means. She constantly tries to follow him everywhere, play with the toys he plays with, eat the food he eats, and even talk to him even though she doesn't really say words.
The Millie experience has been a poetic one for me. God gave me three women in my life when I married the most incredible woman I have ever met. Learning to live with all women was quite the challenge. At times, my seminary degree would have been easier to do. God gave me some backup with Gatlin, but he opened my eyes once more with Millie. Millie has caused me to imagine Audrey and Addy when they were babies, something that has been difficult for me to do simply because I wasn't in the picture when that was happening for either of them. I can imagine their eyes when they experience things for the first time. I can picture them laughing. I can envision them gazing upon their mother. I really think that that look hasn't changed hardly at all since that time when they were Millie's age.
Millie's role has been to bring joy into our world. I thought that we had plenty of that already. God showed me through Millie that there was more to have. I don't think that I can put limits on these spiritual fruits any longer because every time that I think that I have hit the ceiling. I'm shown more through Ashley, one of the kids, or one of my students.
She makes her mommy feel like the most important woman in the world, and to Millie, she is and not just because she is her food source (yep, that's exactly what she was for Gatlin). They have a special bond. Ashley will openly admit that she's a girl mom and is still learning the art of raising a boy. I equate it to riding a rollercoaster blindfolded: you really don't know what is going on but you also know that you'll be ok in the end. Millie and Ashley are smitten with one another. The again, I'm not sure if there's anyone who isn't smitten with Millie after spending about 5 minutes with her.
I wasn't sure how I would feel about having yet another girl in my life. I mean, think about it, that's not only another college to try and pay for, but also another wedding (am I a horrible dad for secretly considering encouraging my kids to elope if it's the right guy and they're ready???). That's another hormonal 13 year old. I'm already in an estrogen ocean. What's one more right? It's another person to gripe about the toilet seat being up, it's another person to fight boys away from.
But then I think about all the privileges I get to have once again. I get to express to yet another woman how she means more to me than any other man. I get to have her first dance (it was like 6 months and she won't remember it, but I'll never forget it). I was the first man she ever kissed. I mean it was open-mouthed and she slobbered all over me, but it was a kiss nonetheless. I get to share with her the story of God's divine plan for her that runs through the life and cross of Jesus. And with Millie being a girl, that's another sex talk that I don't have to be the primary voice in! (sorry not sorry Ashley).
God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave our family one final girl. Millie makes each of us whole. She brightens our faces and brings us joy on incomprehensible levels. Thank God for Amelia Ella Kay. Happy first birthday sweet girl.
