Happy Father's Day...20 Things I like about my daughters.

I was reading MetroDad today, and I have to say, that man has one of the funniest daughters I've ever read about, so in honor of a great idea, I'm going to write my 20 Things:

• Justeen loves to put her hands on her hips, shoot the LDS (Little Death Stare) at me, and say: "That's what you're going with?" She repeats me too well!
• Rory will not nap for hours on end, and when I try to put her down for one, she'll lay there crying for awhile, stop for a few minutes, and then start again. When I begrudgingly get her out of bed, she'll look at me as if to say "I can hang, I can hang!"
• Rory has mastered the power of concentration, she will let out these little grapes, but the smell is like someone painted the room in feces.
• When Justeen was about 18 months old, she figured out the last three numbers of mommy's bank account. So everytime for about three months when we'd go to her bank, she would always pipe up from the backseat in the cutest little voice saying: "2-2-9."
• I took Justeen to the Union picnic one year, and she looked at me drinking beer, and without missing a beat, says: "Daddy, are you drinking pee?!" With the other guys sitting around the keg right there laughing so hard, beer shot out their noses.
• Justeen's first dislike of food: We brought out some pureed green beans for her (Gerber rocks the nasty factor well!) and she turned them flat down the moment she caught a whiff of the scent of those things, and I don't blame her. We've since decided to MAKE baby food.
• Rory likes to mess with us, she will lay there and roll all over for us, but when the Building Healthy Families lady comes over, she won't move. Justeen was a showoff, but Rory is a sarcastic little wench, because this morning in bed, she flipped onto her tummy from her back and was crying about it.
• Justeen has always been a camera ham, Rory will just stare into the lens with this cute, dazed-yet-inquisitive look on her face.
• Teaching my daughters about all the great old actors, musicians, and artists. From the womb, both have been introduced to Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Cream, Queen, Creed (the My Own Prison album, screw the rest), Megadeth and many many more. Rory cues into Amy Brown artwork. We're going to take both of them to the Science and Art Center in Des Moines this or next summer.
• Sitting down thinking I had some shows to watch on the DVR and realizing that they got skipped in favor of some kids movie.
• Ripping said kids movies off of my DVR to burn to DVD for sake of watching later.
• Realizing I'm halfway through this list and I'm out of things to say about my kids right now, because one is asleep and the other is laying down in her room, and I need to clean up after last night's party for my wife.
• Bottle in hand, looking into Lorelei's bright blue eyes and seeing this unconditional, unbridled love...at 3am.
• Watching Justeen play dress-up, and come out with a tiara, a pajama top, jeans with a skirt over them, and no socks with high platform play shoes.
• Justeen being helpful with cleaning, baby sister or anything else I ask, she does it and tries so hard.
• Rory looking face-to-face with me, and then leaning in for a kiss, and instead frenching my nose.
• Justeen getting dressed for the day, and putting both legs in one leg of the pants.
• Rory can be screaming, crying so much that her face is bright red, and tearing all over the place, and just soaked in tears and spittle, and out of air. But I place her in the bath and instant calm!
• Justeen has the cutest voice, and to hear it is great, but to hear it often is bad. I enjoy watching her try to stumble over words she doesn't quite know or can read yet.
• Never underestimate the power of the word "poop" to a five-year-old. It's a noun, adjective, and verb.

It's great being a dad, and I can't complain about it. I have my days, but life goes on.

#32: Six months and what a world its been.

It's been a whole six months (and three days) since that cold, miserable, windy, freezing rain, snowy, shitty day. The day that my youngest daughter was induced into this world (damn modern medicine wanting to save the mother at all costs...I'll post about that sometime in the future) and joined a family in the middle of spiritual, financial, and employment hell.

She is a great looking child today, as she was when she came into the world; we've established a daily routine, which daddy still doesn't adhere to with much behest from the child, and the wifey; she has established a cute sense of humor reminiscent of her dad, she will lay there and my wife will flip her arms back and forth across her mouth, and she doesn't cry, she just sits there and makes noise and relishes the "bahbahbahbahbah" sound it makes (I have video, which I will post when it's on youtube.); she loves her baths. She's a Sagitarius which means she's a fire element, but water calms her. She has her own sense of humor, hilarity at its finest! The faces she gives me while I'm gagging changing diapers that even Justeen wouldn't top. She's too cute, and spiritually she's implanted herself in the family, she's great, funny, hilarious, cute, and she has such a GREAT time while she's in the bath, I can't emphasize that enough.

We're planning her baby blessing/Wiccaning for this Friday. I can't wait to bless her, she is already so great!