Dear Daddy (Yes, Daddy 11)

“I am too, baby girl,” I wink, reminding her of the title that is indeed hers and hers alone.

“Even after four children.”

“Princess please,” I protest. “You’re still my princess in addition to being my queen. You’re the matriarch of our family, everything to me, and equally as important to the kids. Not only that you still find time to help people learn calligraphy and also wrote the bestselling sequel to our original book, which you wisely decided to self-publish on Amazon so you could keep more of the money, which you then donated to charity.”

“Self-publishing was only after chatting with my favorite author, Lena Little. I have to give credit where credit is due and do I ever owe her a ton of credit. She gets our lifestyle because she lives it too.”

“I don’t know who this Lena Little is, but the only ‘lifestyle’ I care about is the one you and I share…the one you and I have created.”

“Daddy, I’m not the same little girl you first knew. I’ve put on pounds, I require naps now, and sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up with the kids.”

“You’re doing it again,” I remind her.

“Doing what?”

“Breaking rule number one…worrying about things when you know that’s Daddy’s job. Has Daddy ever let you down?”

“No, Daddy,” she smiles.

“And he never will, because you’re the foundation this family is built on. Without you we’re nothing. Heck, without you I’d still be locked up doing my little protest against the wrong that was done to me, and that no one cared about but me.”

“I care.”

“Which is exactly what it took to wake me up and prepare to do the right thing at that parole hearing, but again, like always, you led the way, springing me free with your research before I even needed to consider bending my principles to be with you. Which you know I was going to do by the way.”

“So it’s not only Daddy that looks after his little but his little that looks after Daddy?”

“That’s why I said we walk side by side. I meant it down to the core, with everything I’ve got in my heart.”

“And my heart is all for you, Daddy.” She makes a heart shape with her hands, placing them above her heart, and then moves her hands to my heart.

“Mommy and daddy sittin’ in a tree…k-i-ss-i-n-g,” Jill says as the kids are already back from the concession stand. I thank my lucky stars that Josi didn’t allow me to name our twins Jack and Jill like I suggested. They would have been teased so much at school. Thankfully she was there to steer me right and Julia and Julian work just as well, if not better. And it saves the kids a ton of annoyance in the process.

How did I get so lucky? How is it that I’m her Daddy, but when I really stop to think about it her whose low-key the one in charge here, seeing the future before it even happens. And more importantly, do I even care that she’s really the boss, just allowing me to think I’m her Daddy because it completes us, although all this time she must really know she’s the engine that makes our family run. She just allows me to feel like I’m in charge, never undercutting my masculinity and always having my back.

And it’s hard to believe it’s already been a decade of me back in civilization, standing side by side with the backbone of my life and the kids too.

“You wanna see daddy kiss mommy?” I ask the kids, encouraging them.

“Yeah!” they say in unison, and I don’t keep them waiting, my lips getting that sweetness that she always gives me.

“Isn’t there a line in that rhyme about a baby carriage?” I egg the kids on even more.

“Can we have another baby brother?” Julian asks.

“Or sister,” Jill adds.

“Can we get a puppy too?” Jason throws his two cents in, really going for the ultimate as far as a kid’s life is concerned.

“Whaddya think?” I playfully nudge my woman. “Puppy and another baby?”

“Five kids?”

“And it makes our family a lucky number…seven.”

“And a puppy?”

“You’ll never stop, will you,” she asks, shaking her head but she can’t shake the smile that reveals her true feelings.