This morning I had a brief conversation with my daughter. I don’t get to see my kids on the weekends since I usually am working.  I take time to speak to them at least once every weekend. This time I called up my kids on Sunday morning.

My son is quite gregarious. He almost can’t stop talking when he gets on the phone sometimes. I think it’s great. My daughter, on the other hand, can be quiet. I don’t know why, but she tends to not want to speak for long on the phone with me.

Well, that all changed today. I got a call from her at around 6:30PM. I’ve been making updates to my website (claytoncraddock.com) for most of the day. I was ready to talk. We had the BEST conversation in about a year. She just wanted to talk to me…about anything. She initially told me about a globe she was looking at. She said that it was nice, but the globe felt funny. I am assuming it was one of those old globes with the raised surface to show the differences in terrain.

She told me about a few countries she found. I decided to look up information about each country since I had immediate access to the internet. As she named the countries, I told her how many people were in each country, what the currency was and who is the leader — that is, if I could pronounce their name. We then started to play games. She said, “OK daddy, I’ll name a country, then it will be your turn to name one….GO!” We went back and forth rattling off a bunch of countries. I feel we both learned a little bit from each other. Next, I asked her to find Florida. From the recent presidential results, I feel Florida could be its own country, but that is another blog post. I asked her to find the little islands under the state. I wanted her to search for Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. I explained that on one side of the island they speak French and the other Spanish. She said jokingly that, “Well in the middle, they must speak Frannish!”

We had a good laugh and kept on moving around the globe. It was like we were on our own little trip around the world. After about a half hour of that, she looked around to see what other things we could do together. She immediately thought of reading me some of her books. She picked one up and started going for it. 15 minutes later, her mom came in and told her that she had to get ready for bed. She told me that she would have to speak to me tomorrow, forgetting that she would see me in the morning when I pick her and her brother up and take them to school.

I sometimes forget about the bond we share. I have been with my daughter almost every day of her life. The only time I didn’t see her while she was younger was during the dark days of my divorce proceedings. I have been fortunate to have been a stay at home dad since her birth. My profession allows me to have my days free. I can take care of my children when they are sick as well as the days they are off from school. I also spend just about every afternoon with them to cook them dinner and help with homework.

It is truly a blessing to see my daughter transition from a baby to a 10-year-old girl, and yes, this is just the beginning. It is truly one amazing experience. I look at her and can’t believe how much she has changed.

Yeah , yeah, I know. Just wait. Everything will change during the teenage years. I get that. Until then, I am enjoying the present moment. Right now, I am here for my girlie whenever she wants to travel the globe, read books, talk about nothing or just goof off. I hope she will pick up the phone for my advice during her teenage years. I know there will be boys that will be trying to call her 24-7 in junior high school. I’ll be there for her then too.

When they say children grow fast, believe it! They do. It’s all part of life. I feel that so many of us miss out on the little things. Little things really do mean a lot.