Two years. The sort of time frame that might feel like forever as you go through it, then in retrospect, seem like a blink of an eye.
Not this time. It’s been a long time, no matter which way you look at it. Our daughter, despite her attempts to never eat any protein with dinner, just keeps growing. As does her sister. Yes, that’s correct, there’s a second small child in our lives. Two years, two girls, too wonderful.
I changed jobs in that time. That feels better than saying I lost my job. But that’s what happened. Turned out the world was not looking for a slightly sarcastic dad-blogger for all the high-salary positions, so we figured out how to make due for a while, until the right thing could come along.
But back to those 2 girls. I’m that dad. I am. There’s no way to get around it. My co-workers know that asking about my weekend means pictures on my phone. Two smiling girls (one broadly beaming, the other just looking hungry and wanting her mother) appear in meetings every Monday.
Two girls who look so much the same, and act so different. One who looks at her younger sister like the doll she wants to show the world, the little one looking at her big sis like she’s the greatest thing to happen since momma. I’m happily running 3rd in her estimation, so much is tied up hoping these girls become the women they are supposed to be.
My wife and I talk about how beautiful they are, how much of life is better because of them, even as it’s exponentially more sleep-deprived and loud and difficult to navigate emotionally. But what I don’t say enough, that I’m thinking right now, is this–they will always have each other. At something recently, I heard someone say that their job as a parent is to make sure their kids love each other. I wasn’t sure if that was silly or not–there’s so much more to it.
But down to brass tacks, how we love our siblings shapes how we love the world. Is it an easy love between two people? Or a love borne of fear, evading a parent’s capricious nature? Is it a passing love, closeness a victim of years apart or separate interests or parents that somehow excluded? Or the bitter, only because I have to love that happens between kids somehow set against each other? Insolence and jealousy and hurt feelings somehow combining into a familial enmity.
Again, I can’t prove it, but from what I can tell, we set that tone, that love. If our kids know love is always there, they can love freely. If they don’t, then they’ll harbor all of that bitterness.
So basically, I know their relationship will change, but for now, I want my girls to know each other, to know their love for one another isn’t conditional, that it’s as free as the air they breathe.
I want them to know what I know, about my own sister, or my wife, or my God. That love is free, and its only limit is my ability to see it.
I love you, girls. Now go take care of each other.
#dadgoals 