being a dad

Zoë and I had our hair trimmed today at Stephanie's downstairs. Zoë is having her first school photo tomorrow and she's naturally quite excited and wants to look her best. Steph did a good job and whilst Zo was waiting for me to have mine trimmed she found a sticker and colouring book in Steph's toy box. Stephanie let Zo have the book and after I'd finished having my hair trimmed we took it upstairs to the house.

After half an hour every sticker was in it's place in the book and Zoë decided she'd like to colour in and finish one of the pictures. We chose 'Feeding the ducks' which was an old man (me) and a young boy (Zo) sat on a bench in the park feeding the ducks. She then decided that the old man was Jon as although he was grey haired he was mostly bald. I was the Swan; Mummy, Mrs O'Dwyer Suzanne and herself were the Ducks; two ducklings were Edie (her friend) and Miss Lewin (her other teacher from school).

I helped her with a bit of the colouring but she mostly did it herself. I went down to make a coffee and she proudly told me, when I came back up, that she'd done the sky and the pond herself. They were both coloured in blue, inside the lines quite neatly and she was obviously pleased with herself. I told her she was brilliant and that her colouring was really getting very good.

At bed time after her story, she asked for her colouring book to show her animals. I brought it, opened it at the right page and said goodnight. As I gaveh her a kiss I told her again how beautiful I thought the picture was - especially the sky and the pond she'd coloured herself. "Oh thank you Daddy" she beamed at me as she hugged me with the biggest, happiest smile I've ever seen on her face. Even now, reading this back, it makes the hairs on my neck stand on end .

Being a Dad - the best job in the world!