As most of you know, I'm a father of two great kids. But one thing I'm not is a sentimental person. I've seen the first steps. I've walked to that first day of school. I've taken training wheels off the bikes (which actually ranks higher than the first to moments for me personally). But the one thing I've looked forward to more than any other fatherhood moment happened last weekend.
My daughter, Layla, crossed a very important threshold earlier this year- the 48" mark. Which meant she was finally tall enough to go on an actual thrill-ride roller coaster. I can honestly say that I'd been looking forward to escorting her down the line at an amusement park with as much anticipation as a father looks forward to escorting his daughter down the isle on her wedding day. Since she was born, this was a moment that I envisioned easily eclipsing any milestone to date.
My daughter isn't too much of a thrill seeker by any stretch. Pretty timid on the whole. But she's a daddy's girl and and steps up from time. We were in line for the ride for probably close to 20 minutes and during that time she must have changed her mind 10 times about actually going on the ride. But in the end I got her to go.
This was the end result. (You can skip the first 30 seconds or so since the guy watching the cars told me to put the video camera away.)
It's kind of hard to see, but there's a short glimpse of a smile in there. She was a trooper. We wound up going on every coaster in the park (some twice). Proudest day of daddyhood ever.
In the interest of fair exposure. My son did get in on some of the action as well... Something tells me he's not going to be too hard to convince when it's time to get on a coaster.