daddy's girl

running hugs and kisses on our walk

just like daddy

a few from the playground last night

norah has always favored me over mark. when she was sad, she wanted me. when she got hurt, she wanted me. she wanted me to rock her to sleep, me to feed her breakfast, me to get her dressed...me for everything.  aside from needing a mommy break every once in awhile this was an ideal situation for me. i LOVED being wanted, needed, so badly. this was the part of motherhood i was so looking forward to before i became a mom.

but time and time again i saw the hurt in mark's eyes as he handed a screaming baby over to me who immediately calmed down once she was in my arms. i saw his spirit crushed; wanting so badly to give his daughter what she needed but knowing that he couldn't. it broke my heart and though i tried to console him and tell him it was just a phase, i knew his heart was breaking as well and that no amount of my words would heal the rejection he felt from his own child.

fast forward to now: norah is head over heels in LOVE with her daddy. don't get me wrong, of course she's always loved him; but the way she lights up when she sees him is different now. she wakes up from nap and the first thing we hear is "daddy? daddy?" she wants to do everything he does and she follows him everywhere he goes. i am so happy that mark is finally able to share the feeling i get from being wanted, needed. but more so, my heart swells at just the sight of them together. to see his love for her, and hers for him makes my heart ache with joy. falling in love over and over again is easy when you're married to a man like him. i am so proud to call mark my husband, and i know norah is so very happy that he is her daddy.

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side story: 

today is norah's half-birthday. mark got up with her and let me sleep in a little. when i woke up an hour later the two of them were just coming upstairs after eating breakfast. mark looked upset, and when i asked what was wrong he pulled up this picture on the camera:

::insert confused face here::

he said that he had made norah a breakfast of french toast shaped like "18" for 18 months and had fanned strawberries around the edge of the plate. he was so proud of his creation that he snapped a few photos before letting norah dig in. unfortunately, i had been shooting in manual mode at the playground yesterday and he didn't think to adjust the settings first, so what he ended up with were a bunch of under exposed pictures. one was completely black. poor guy! i felt bad but seeing him upset over something like that was just so sweet i had to share.

here's my attempt at "fixing" this mess of a picture. it's not great, but you can at least see what he did: