Father's Day 2010

Well, it's time for Father's Day, and I am so glad that my dad is back from Birmingham.  It's still not the same as him being home, but I am able to go see him.  He's the other piece of my life that I wouldn't be who I am without him.  I discussed what my mom meant to me on Mother's Day and it brought me to tears, but honestly there just aren't words to express how I see my dad.  As almost everyone knows I am a Daddy's girl and always will be.  Growing up, my time was spent side-by-side with him, either out at the pool or at Six Flags with our season passes. 

My Dad with his new iPhone, just in time for Father's Day

My dad worked long and hard hours, sometimes 16 hours a day, as Chief Chemist at Uniroyal Goodrich tire company, just so that he would have full off days to spend with me.  Even when I was too small to remember (I've seen the pictures and heard the stories), he would go to yard sales and buy all the hot wheels tracks and cars he could find and then put all the pieces together to make a big track going all through our house.  And of course I will never forget playing Centipede and Frogger on the Atari with him. 

But yes, I would have to say the summers at the pool, him getting so badly sunburned that he blistered, but still going back out the next day with me, are some of my fondest memories.  And who could forget the season passes and many many many trips to Six Flags, and his bad knees, and all the hills, oh the hills.  But he just put knee braces on and off we went to ride anything that I wanted to ride, with ONE exception; the Mine Train.  It would absolutely kill his back, but he still rode it, but only twice a day, that was his back's limit.  And we took so many of my friends, even my cousins a couple of times.  I remember being on the Mine Train 1 time and it got really slow (it always did I had just ridden it so many times that I didn't pay attention, and my cousin leaned forward and said, "Uncle Al, are we stopping?"  my dad responded to Chris, "We be going underground now."  He said it in the weirdest voice.  I know it might sound dumb to those that don't know my dad, but I will always remember that.  And then we were on the Free Fall, we were at the top and we were looking out across the parking lot to see if we could see our car, (this was my first time on this ride), and out of nowhere Chris says, "I wish I had gone to the bathroom before I got on this thing,"  all of a sudden I had to go, and we fell all the way down and it ends with us laying on our backs, and he said laughing, "well I don't have to go anymore."  Of course he didn't use the bathroom, but those are the moments that you remember.

My dad has always been there for me, no matter what has happened, no matter if he wasn't supposed to be my friend, he always was.  He knew who I liked at school and who I didn't and he knew who was dating whom, and who was fighting with who, there wasn't much that I didn't tell my dad.  I didn't tell my mom much at all, it wasn't that I didn't trust her, it was just that I looked up to her so much that I didn't ever want her to look down at me, not that she ever would have.

Still to this day my dad hasn't changed.  He feels that he has because he's now disabled and sick and can't do those things he did when I was young with Lyssa, but he will be 60 in a couple of weeks.  Of course Lyssa always wants to see her Paw Paw and spend the night because Paw Paw lets her have the remote and stay up late and eat Little Smokies and Doritos.  It kills her when he's away and she can't stay with him, however I think she and Maw Maw have gotten a lot closer, she has been spending the night with her lately, since Pawpaw's not there.  I never want to wake up and my dad not be here, I cannot even imagine what I or my daughter would go through, much less my Mom as they have been married for about 36 years.  I am glad I got to spend today with him, even though he's in no shape to really enjoy today.  Lyssa did pick him out this Alabama shirt that I'm sure he will wear with pride.

Well, my baby girl is a Pawpaw's girl, but first and foremost on her mind is her daddy.  I always think I was raised and have the best daddy in the world, but then I sit back and look and think Lyssa has the best daddy in the world.  So I am kind of divided.  Firstly, I never played sports, so I don't know for a fact, but I'm sure my mom and dad would have supported me no matter what I did.  Lyssa plays like every sport known to females, and her dad supports her at everything she does.  Whether it's cheerleading (he has his own Muscle Shoals All Star Cheerleader hoodie with his name on the front, that he still wears), or attending every basketball game (even if it means taking his lunch break on Saturday's during her game so that he can rush to the Rec Center just to catch 30 minutes of a game), or softball (where he helped coach this year).  He never misses a beat in her life.  He requests off work to go to school activities, and has requested some weekends off this summer to spend some time with her before she goes back to school.

To watch them together just melts my heart and you would think he's the one who gave birth to her instead of me.  They are so much alike and in everything she does she tries to please daddy and make sure daddy is watching if she does something good in a game or practice.  If we decide to watch a movie in our room instead of the living room, she either jumps between us or on his side and asks, "so, what are we watching?"  She has even gotten me to buy her Auburn T-Shirts and pj's, those I refer to as the "she wants something from daddy clothes."  All she has to do to me is bat her pretty blue eyes, but with her daddy, she throws on her Auburn clothes, and bats her blue eyes and he melts.

Well, this Father's Day is a little different, normally it's a card and maybe some candy and of course supper, well this year his baby girl decided what she wanted to do and I almost cried when she told me her idea.

This is the cake she wanted to special order for him, this is for him for Father's Day and I guess you could say for a private baby shower for him.  She wanted a baby cake and wanted the Happy Father's Day part on it too.  Plus, of course she just had to get him his favorite, an Auburn shirt.

My big stomach at 7 months, along with his Father's Day cake.

My Husband and My Daddy's girl