My little Dumplin (Take Four)

And here she is. Making her Gary's Greetings debut, My little dumpie Dumplin. My third oldest child and my oldest girl. I have called her my Dumplin ever since her first day in this world. When she was born, she was tiny and white and all wrinkled up, just like a dumpling.

She is a true Daddy's girl and that is just fine with me. In fact, if she wants to be a Daddy's girl for the rest of my life that would be perfect.(Hint, hint)

When Dumpie was still a little baby she would love to get up at 3:00 in the morning and come see me. She had a 'system' that her mother and me HAD to follow. Her mother was to get up and get her and then bring her to me. If we deviated from this plan in anyway, she would not be a happy baby. I would wrap her up in a blanket and we go and sit in a rocking chair on the porch and watch the sun come up together almost every morning. I can still see those big green eyes staring up at me, so trusting and so full of love. Those big green eyes have turned brown now to match her mother's, but she is still just a pretty. I could fill this entire post on just how beautiful she is, but she is much more than that. She is so much more.

She is a very strong, smart, funny and caring young woman. She has enough love in that heart of hers to fill the Grand Canyon and it over flow. She can take me down with a shoestring tackle that would rival any NFL player, and she finds it absolutely hilarious that stepping on the back of my shoe, while running, will not only cause me to go down in a game of 'kill the daddy with the ball', it will also tear the sole right off of my shoe. She makes straight A's and thinks it is funny as hell every time Cindy Lauper pins her father up against the wall in the 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun" video.

She has tickle spots all over and doesn't mind asking to get them tickled. She has a laugh that is loud and infectious. If you hear her laugh and don't laugh yourself it is because you heart quit beating and you need to see a doctor. She has some of the best ear and neck sugar ever, and it is my responsibility to get as much of that sugar as the law will allow every time we are together.

She loves to throw tea parties and she loves the Jonas Brothers. She loves to color and to talk on her toy cell phone to Nick and let him know that she is going to marry him immediately. She loves her Barbies and her bath fizzies. She loves to climb up into my lap and curl up into a tight little ball and tuck her head under my chin and sit and snuggle for hours.

She said she wants to be a doctor when she grows up and she has the ability and the potential to do just that, and more if she wants to. She is going to be challenged though. She has to grow up in a world where the TV is covered with the images of women that only care about how big their boobs are or if they have too much arm hair. Music videos where the women are only there to see how fast they can bounce their butts, and men that just think a woman is here for their pleasure or that she is here to be lied to and made fun of. I know she can learn to see past all of that and become the beautiful, caring, strong young woman that I know she can be. I hope she learns to see her potential is unending. I hope she is always the knockout champion. I hope that she learns that the only reason she needs a man in her life is because he completes her and not because 'she can't fix her car because she's a girl'. I hope that one day she knows how proud of her I am, but she'll never really know how much I love her.