I took it for granted and I won’t make that mistake twice.

I remember when Kendall was born we just marveled at anything new that happened. If she sneezed it was the greatest sneeze ever. When she rolled over it was “I have never seen a baby roll over with ease like that before”. She walked and crawled faster than most babies we knew (by the way we didn’t really know any). Natalie comes along and every milestone that she hit we had seen before. Don’t get me wrong we have been excited for the things that she has done so far. When she crawled it was fun to watch her look all goofy and wobbly but it wasn’t the same. When we gave her baby food for the first time it was just as cute as with Kendall but it was rushed and it wasn’t recorded with the wall to wall coverage like CNN does when an airplane goes down. The other day we bathed the girls separately and to be honest i’m not really sure why we did it but Natalie loved it. She giggled and splashed and was just able to be a 9 month old and not worry about anything but having a good time. Normally everything she does involves Kendall to a certain degree. Kendall can be very loving and sweet but on the flip side to that she can also be very rough and selfish. I call this mode the this is mine and mine only and you can not play with this toy that I have never ever payed with before but for some reason don’t want you to play with it and I am going to put it up high enough to where you cant get it which will make you cry mode. I had so much fun just me and Nat for bath time that I decided that I was determine to just have some us time every day for a little bit. Kendall gets alone time with me when Natalie is napping or feeding. We cook dinner some nights but Natalie never has any just daddy time. So for the last few days that is exactly what I have done. In the morning before Kendall gets up I make sure that Natalie and I are doing something together. The dishes can wait. I guess what i’m getting at is as a stay at home dad I have always told myself ” this is awesome you are never going to miss anything with the girls growing up”. I was wrong, I have missed things. I have missed things because of me. I have missed things because I took for granted that I have already done this before. I haven’t done this before. I haven’t witnessed Natalie crawling before or eating food before. I haven’t watched Natalie awkwardly tumble backwards while trying to stand up. I haven’t gone through any of those experiences with Natty, I did all that with K and anyone who knows me knows that my kids are two different amazing little humans that I love very much. Shame on me for making that mistake and assumption that I have done it before. So I’ll leave you with this, I know how important my dad was to me. I know that I would really like for both of my girls to feel the same way about me. I know my girls love me and I know I’m a very good father but I want them to know that I love many things about them individually. I want Natalie to know that when she does walk that I will be right in her face smiling and laughing and building our own memories not just doing it again. Below our a few pictures of Natalie just getting to be Natalie.