Daddy's Girl

Scott's been out of town for the past week, working. He only just returned yesterday. It's the longest trip he's taken since Sadie was born, and it was rough on both of us, but we know we have to get used to it because this is only the beginning of what will be a year full of business trips for him and double parent duty for me.

In preparation, we set up a webcam on the computer and Scott taught me how to use Skype. (Yeah, I realize I'm about the last internet-savvy person left on Earth who has never used Skype, but something about the idea of being on the phone while looking the other party in the eye has always made me feel weird. Like awkward phone pauses aren't awkward enough?) So every night he'd call and I'd dutifully hold the baby up to camera and Scott would go, "Sadie! Sadie! Sadie!" and Sadie would ignore him and kick the keyboard instead because anything that has buttons on it automatically becomes her favorite thing in the room.

I'm kidding. She actually only got interested in the keyboard after she was done grinning her head off at the sound of her dad's voice, even though I don't think she ever put it together that the image on the computer screen was him. And that was a running theme this whole week: hear Dad's voice, freak out with excitement. You'd be surprised how many ways Scott's voice has been recorded in this household. One night as I changed her diaper, the phone rang and the outgoing message began to play. The instant she heard him say "Hello..." her head whipped towards the door and she began to squirm and smile, looking for his face. I felt really bad until 5 seconds later when she forgot all about it and got interested in the stuffed dog on her changing table instead because she has the attention span of a hummingbird.

At some point when I wasn't paying attention, Scott became Sadie's favorite person in the whole world. Watching them together is so much fun. He walks into a room and her whole face lights up with joy. He approaches and she squeals with anticipation. He picks her up, flips her upside down so he can munch on her belly, and while I'm having silent heart attacks imagining her being dropped on her head, she's having the time of her life.

It all brings back memories of spending time with my dad when I was a kid and how, when he wanted to, he could become the funnest person who has ever lived. A simple day of hanging out on the beach, or walking around the campus at UCLA, or rolling down grassy hillsides across the street from the mall, always transformed into something special when it was just the two of us. He'd point out something interesting, or teach me an important fact (a tendency from his teaching days that he's never been able to shake, which later in life made me and my sister roll our eyes as we anticipated a "Dad lecture") or, more often, make a game out of whatever we were doing.

Ever since the day we learned we were having a daughter, I've hoped she would share times like this with her own dad, that they would become best friends. I just didn't realize it would happen so quickly. I'm not jealous -- not when I still get to be the person who comforts her the best, the only person she'll tolerate drying her off after a bath or putting her into and taking her out of a carseat 20 times as we run errands. She's still my girl. But now, she's daddy's girl, too.