my baby daddy

i have been seeing posts on instagram and facebook all day from loving daughters and sons and wives  all claiming their their dad/husband is the best father around. i am not here to argue with them. i'm sure they are the best...for their family. i am here to tell you that dan is the absolute best...for our family!

way back when we began dating (almost 15 years ago...wow!) i would picture myself married to dan and watching him play with our hypothetical children.

 oh come on girls...you know you all did this too whenever you just started dating someone. it's just what we women do! 

anyway, from day one i knew he would make a great dad. 

i saw it in the way he treated his own dad. the respect he has for john is immeasurable. i knew dan would take the role of "dad" very seriously and provide nothing but the best for his family much like john has.

i saw it in the way he was with his own brother and sister. being 12 and 13 years younger than him they were still just kids when we began dating. watching him interact with a then 8 and 7 year old scott and mary was heartwarming. he was so involved with their lives and so protective of them. he even brought scott with him on our first date for crying out loud...just incase if things went south then at least he had his little buddy with him. 

(thankfully they didn't..and this story made for a great speech given by scott at our rehearsal dinner.)

i saw it in the way scott and mary were with him. scotty wanted nothing more than to be "one of the guys" with dan and all his buddies. mary was not a fan of mine for the first couple years we dated. she didn't like the fact that i was taking away from her and dan's time together. she wanted all of his attention when he was home from college and i got in the way of that. thankfully she has since warmed up to me (love ya, mare!) but that showed me just how much they love and admire dan...much like our own kids would.

i see it in the way he longs to know every little detail about the dad he never knew. how close he remained with his o'rourke family. how much he thinks about the kind of man and father dan was and would have been had he been given the chance and how much my dan tries to emulate that. 

you see i always knew dan would make a great dad. to actually have my dreams come true back in february of 2008 and see him in action just confirmed all my 20 year old daydreams. 

dan you really are the best dad i could have ever hoped my children would have. you love them with all your heart and you're the only one who can understand how much i love them as well. we make a great team and there truly isn't anyone else i could imagine being on this journey with. 

our kids rock and a lot of that has to do with you. 

you're amazing. 

so glad you had such a wonderful father's day today.