Daddy's Girl...

When I was sixteen, I had a long, lonely summer. My boyfriend and I had broken up. One of my good friends was hanging out with said ex-boyfriend (and therefore she was not hanging out with me), and I was spending those long, hot summer evenings with...my dad. Not exactly the way a sixteen-year-old girl wants to spend an entire summer, huh? Instead of having slumber parties, watching movies, and falling in love, I was sitting in the passanger seat of my dad's car, holding a giant spotlight, searching for deer. I do believe that spotlighting is considered a sport in this area, and I must say that I was pretty good at it. Around the middle of the summer, my dad had another brilliant idea...it was time for his little girl to learn to.... are you ready? Shoot a Bow and Arrow. Yes, the boyfriendless, lonely teenage girl was handed a weapon and told to shoot it. Nice. It was quite a summer. The funny thing is that I don't remember the summer I was 15 or the summer I was 17. It is that long, lonely summer that I spent with my dad, holding a spotlight and searching for deer, that will forever live in my heart. I guess it wasn't so "lonely" after all.

It is that summer memory that makes me smile when I see Steve sharing his passions with the girls. He has never complained about having girls (or about not having a boy), but he has made it clear that dance and gymnastics will not be the only interests that we share with the girls. Steve is not a spotlighting, archery shooting kind of guy, but like my dad, he does believe in teaching a girl how to use a weapon.

He has started sharing his love of karate with the girls, and he bought them swords and shields to balance out the tiarras and pom poms. Our little girly girls should be fairly well-rounded, thanks to a dad who loves them enough to share his passions with them. Who knows, maybe someday they'll spend a long, "lonely" boyfriendless summer with their dad... learning to break boards with one karate chop.