JACKSON - We had taken the boys to school, and Ginny had gone to tennis. I was shaving when I heard a shy knock on my bathroom door. I glanced toward the door and saw a slight crack in it with a little 4-year-old girl peeking through with a big smile on her face.
The door opened a bit farther. "Look, Daddy, I've got Dr. Pepper lip gloss." The words amused me, and I looked at the plastic tube in her hand. Sure enough, Dr. Pepper lip gloss. I am living in a world of Dr. Pepper lip gloss, Cinderella and little girl berets.
I'm not sure you can get much more apart in human existence - a 48-year-old man and a 4-year-old girl. At times, I am cynical and world-weary. She is always in awe and living for the moment.
I finished shaving and there she was sitting on a pretty cushion in the middle of her room in her Cinderella-Pocahontas-Snow White combo nightgown, patiently waiting for Daddy to get her dressed and take her to school. "We don't want to be late," she warns me with a smile, speaking the words in an innocent lilt that soothes the savage beast and melts my heart.
"That's right, sweetie pie, we don't want to be late," I answer. Our eyes lock, and we smile.
In life, there are all kinds of love. There is that intense, almost painful, puppy love of puberty. Then there is the overwhelming, desperate love of the late teens. There's the fun, happy, carefree love of the twenties. And the deeper, richer love that comes from years of marriage and innumerable shared experiences.
There's the love for your father and the love for your mother - each intense yet completely different. There's the love you have for your dear friends, those who have remained faithful to you over decades. There's the love you have for your fellow man. There's the love you have for Jesus.
There's the huge love I feel for my boys as I watch them mature and slowly but surely turn into men.
But there is nothing quite like a father's love for his little girl.
It may be the only time I will experience complete, uncompromising, unjudging, conditionless love from a woman. If I could only bottle it. If I could only stop time.
When I come home, she runs to my arms with a big smile. "Poppa," she says, or sometimes "Daddy!" Then she'll want to dance or swing or tickle. If it's a good day, she'll want some "necky smoochy."
Ruth is all girl, as feminine as they come, yet she refuses to let the boys get one step ahead of her in any endeavor. She's all yes and go. "Me too" is her battle cry.
This week, Ginny returned from shopping and Ruth soon appeared from her room dressed as a kitty cat from head to toe. She had whiskers and little kitty cat ears and a very long tail. She thought she was the cat's meow and wore that kitty cat outfit everywhere.
She does have her faults. She takes forever picking out her clothes, driving Ginny crazy. This gives me a huge opportunity for an endless variety of potshots at my better half. My favorite: "Well the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."
Last week, Ruth simply would not get dressed for preschool. She was mouthing off to Ginny and finally, after many warnings, I spanked her for the first time in her life. It was excruciating.
I was scared coming home that night that she would still be angry at me. She came running into my arms and then said, "Thank you, Daddy, for teaching me how to obey like a big girl."
Always smiling, always happy, always up for fun and adventure, Ruth is going to be a handful. She is unbridled energy and love. Some day some little boy out there will have all his dreams answered.
As a Southern man, I have complained over the years at all the fathers out there who spoiled their little girls making my dating life more demanding than it needed to be.
And here I am spoiling my little princess, starting the cycle all over again. Some young man is going to have to pay a lot of attention to Ruth to match the kind of love and support she gets from me.
I just can't help myself. I am infatuated. She is the cutest, prettiest little angel my mind could have ever conjured up. And she's real. And she's my little girl, devoted to me.
It's so nice to be out of diapers, but I didn't know the result would be sharing my bathroom with a female, albeit a little one.
I had long since surrendered my half-claim to the master bathroom. I was more than happy to walk down the hall to the small bathroom to avoid the swamp of feminine doodads. My little bathroom was perfect - small, straightforward, no frills.
Enter Ruth, whose bedroom is just across the hall from my bathroom. She now takes great delight in sharing with me. I'm checkmated.
I guess I could share a bathroom with Lawrence and John. Egads! No, I think sharing with Ruth is the best deal I can get. It is quite amusing.
She came home this week with a short haircut. "I look like Pippin," she declared. Indeed she did. Then she showed me her pink painted toenails and fingernails. Pink, pink, pink. She loves pink.
I am reading "Dick and Jane" to Ruth. She gets distracted and goes off on a pirate episode. There is nothing quite so adorable as a little girl trying to imitate a big bad pirate. She concocted a whole pirate story, complete with hidden treasure and sailing ship, lowering her voice to imitate the big bad pirates.
When I do my morning free weight calisthenics, there she is with her two two-pound pink weights. As she pumps the big iron, she pronounces each letter of the alphabet with each stroke.
I could go on and on. All daddies could go on and on. It's silly. It's pathetic, but I can't help myself. Her word is my command. I am conquered.
One day she will grow up and not think I'm such hot stuff. The very thought pains me, but I acknowledge it. Meanwhile, I'm going to savor every moment, every hug, every smile and every kiss.
