Love at first sight.

I was never one to believe in love at first sight. I thought it was just something that was fantasy, a way to speed up the process in books and movies. The usual boy meets girl, they fall in love, some conflict separates them, they get back together, true love conquers all, and on your way out don't forget to buy the soundtrack featuring the new hit by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Don't get me wrong, I always considered myself somewhat of a romantic at heart, hell I won my high school's poetry contest 3 years in a row (Iambic pentameter for the win bitches!). But I still never believed it was real, that was until I was 30.

I wish I could say it was my wife, but nope she hated me when we first met... true story.  No lie, she HATED me with the fires of hades but obviously my charm and good looks won her over.

I never believed in love at first sight until I met the girl I now call my daughter. I met E, a week after my 30th birthday, when she was days away from being 5 months old. She was sleeping at the time, she looked so peaceful and innocent nearly broke my heart. Correction, it did break my heart because part of me was pretty angry at the guy that liked to call himself her father already walked out on her and J (who is now my wife).

Coles' notes version of me and J up to the point where I met E... Met in university, we became teammates, she hated me, then we got along, became friends, became best friends, and stayed close for over a decade. If you want the unabridged version I am sure that will come in a future post at some point.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. That little girl made my heart melt, and she was just sleeping. When she was awake, I was putty in her tiny tiny hands and I was OK with that. If you ask my wife not much has changed, as much as I try to be the hard ass she always has daddy's number.

Some of my favourite pictures of her and I when she was little always involve us sleeping, something about when she would just snuggle in to my chest I would be out probably just as fast as she was. If I could have figured a way to bottle that I'd make my first million and I'm sure I could get Ambien off the market.

As much as she floored me when I first met her, I wasn't prepared for her to use the D-word. We hadn't even be teaching her it, we were trying to teach her my name when she was learning to talk. J told me on the phone one time that she was saying my name and E said "Dada". I didn't believe her, I told her it must have been "Gaga" and she was just having trouble with my name. Then the next time I was with them I went to E and said "Say G..." "Dada"... Well of course I took it in stride, and by taking it stride I mean I cried.

That little girl has been one of the best parts of my life the last few years. Words cannot express what she means to me, or how much she breaks my heart when she cries as she tells me she misses me when I am on the road, or how proud I am every time she says matter of factly, "Daddy is Batman, Mommy is Batgirl, and I am Robin.", or how happy I was when the adoption got approved last week. She is my daughter, my world, and my munchkin and nothing is ever going to change that.

Love you E.