Last minute baseball

To celebrate KC's birthday in October, we took a short trip to California to see the Angels play some ball. We try to catch at least one game live in Angels Stadium each year...we barely made it this year. It was a whole different game with a little one year old that always wanted to be on the move, but we still enjoyed the game. Maycee was happy as long as she had her ball in hand, and KC was happy to see that his little girl loves baseball!! Thanks to our parents for the great tickets!

Two peas in a pod...

Maycee scored a rally monkey...she took it everywhere for the next week!

Until next year...

I HATE LITTLE GIRLS

Don’t like them- hate everything about them. Hate how they get into your heart and mind and won’t leave you alone- ever. I will never be able to just be K.C. again- I will always be K.C. with Maycee on my mind and in my heart. I flew to Japan this week, and on the airplane I made the mistake of watching "My Sisters Keeper". Nothing like a big grown man crying across the entire Pacific Ocean because his little girl won’t leave his mind.

Today was the first time Maycee verbally acknowledged that she wanted to be with me. She fell asleep with me on the couch and when I took her up and laid her in her crib, she immediately shot up and grabbed me around my neck. She held me tight and yelled, "Daddy, No...Daddy, No!" After a few more minutes of rocking her back to sleep, I again laid her in her crib and quickly ran out of the room. I sat by her door for almost 20 minutes, listening to her soft little sobs and quietly mumbling to herself, "Daddy, Please....Daddy, Please". I hate little girls- hate everything about them. After I was sure she was asleep I tiptoed back into her room to see my little Sleeping Beauty… I just sat there crying and staring at the beauty God gave me. Reminded me of one of my favorite Jimmy Dean songs…now I know what he was feeling when he wrote it:

“Dear Daughter,
I tiptoed to your room tonight, and I looked down at you smiling in your sleep.
You were so lovely my heart nearly broke, and I thought how very much like Sleeping Beauty a little girl is. When I tuck you in at night I never know how old you'll be when you wake. One evening you crawl on your dad's lap and throw your arms around his neck, the next morning you might be much too grown-up for that sort of thing. You're so quickly approaching the awkward age, too young to drive a car and yet too old to be carried into the house half asleep on daddy's shoulder. I have a secret that I've never told you Sleeping Beauty, you're going on a very exciting trip, you'll travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow. It's a rapid journey and you'll travel light, leaving behind your measles, mumps, freckles, bumps, bubblegum, and me. I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover that the world is more important than your daddy's lap. Yesterday you were blue-jeaned and pig-tailed, the neighborhood's best tree-climber. Tomorrow you'll be blue-organdie and pony-tailed, and you'll view the world from a loftier perch- a pair of high-heel shoes. Yesterday you could mend a doll's broken leg with a hug, tomorrow you'll be able to break a young man's heart with a kiss. Yesterday you could get lost one aisle away from me in a supermarket, now I have to worry about losing you down another aisle to some strange young man. You see just at the point where your growing pains stop, mine begin. Yesterday you were kind of a pain in the neck when you were around. Tomorrow you'll be an ache in my heart when you're not. Tomorrow you'll lay aside your jump rope, and tie up the telephone lines. And that little boy that used to push you in the mud, well he'll fight to share a dance with you. The clock upstairs is counting the minutes for you, and the sky upstairs is saving its brightest stars. And the sun is waiting with its shiniest day. Oh I can't expect you to live in a dollhouse forever. Sooner or later the butterfly sheds its cocoon and the smallest bird must try its wings. But when you grow up and out of my arms, when you finally get too big for my shirts, I'll still recall how you used to scatter dust and dolls partially through every room in the house. But you spread sunshine too. The dust is settled, your mom picked up the dolls, but the sunshine will always fill the corners of our hearts. So here I am talking in your sleep, because, well if you saw this look on my face you'd laugh, and if I spoke with this lump in my throat I'd cry. Honey when I looked at you tonight you were a Sleeping Beauty, so I tiptoed over and I kissed you. You didn't wake up, I knew you wouldn't. According to the legend only the handsome young prince can open your eyes, and I'm just the father of a future bride. So you sleep on pretty thing, tomorrow you'll awake and you'll be a young lady. And you won't even realize that you've changed courses in the middle of a dream. But you might notice this little change in me. I look a little different somehow, a little sadder, a little wiser, but a whole lot richer. Tonight I kissed a princess and I feel like a king.” -Jimmy Dean

So what will happen when this little girl is all grown up? Will she still take up so much space in my heart and mind, or will I get the old K.C. back? If I don’t, I guess that is OK...I will learn to live with it.

So, I hate little girls, hate everything about them. But I sure am glad I have gotten a chance to find out why I hate them. Soon we will find out if baby #2 is a boy or girl. I hope it is a boy, because I am not sure how many more tears I have left in me.

Sleep well little Princess. I will be here waiting when you wake.

-Love Daddy