christopher is a dad

And he's a good one.

The other day, I was putting baby girl in her car seat so we could go to Christopher's work. She complained and arched her back and made sure I knew she didn't like it.

I said, "You need to sit in your seat so we can go see your daddy."

She relaxed, turned to me, smiled, and said one of the four words she says: "Daddy." She only says words for things that she's totally in love with: doggy, chocolate (caw-coe), agua, baby—and daddy.

Our baby says out loud who's her favorite parent every day: "Daddy."

I can see why she loves him. He tickles her, he swings her around, he got her her own computer keyboard that she can pound on, rather than just telling her no when she tries to get her hands on ours. She knows, without doubt, that she's his favorite kid. At least so far.

I think he's pretty great myself. He switches off parent duty with me every other night, just in case our sweet girl gets up at 2 in the morning. He'll change the poopiest of diapers. He's protective of her in ways that I know will be important later in her life. And he makes life just plain fun when the three of us are hanging out together.

The other day, he said something about it being weird that we're just living our lives, doing our thing while this other tiny person is supposed to be getting a childhood. She's got Christopher as a dad, so I think her childhood is going to turn out just great.