Slice of Life - Now what do I write about?

I am not the first one to blog about struggling to have a topic to blog about. I'm completely, 100% in that spot at this very moment. I'm somewhat bothered that I haven't kept up with the Slice of Life challenge to blog every day in March; however, I am going to look at what's good and acknowledge the fact that I've posted more than once. Or twice even. For me, life gets in the way - meetings that run into the evening hours, sick kid (seriously, I'm VERY ready for this cold and flu season to be O-V-E-R!), and then the night like tonight where I am just flat out tired. Super tired.

Sometimes when I really struggle to know what to write about I go to pictures. Tonight, I casually looked through the pictures on my iPhone and came across this one of my husband and Maddie.

Maddie is a cuddle queen. It's one of the many things I love about her - the fact that she wants to be close to us. As she grows older, though, she definitely expresses a preference for her daddy. A piece of me is sad by the fact that I begin to take a back seat in terms of who she prefers to be with, but on the other hand, I love that she loves her daddy the way she does and that she's old enough to tell him herself.

I had my own special relationship with my dad. There were two of us girls in the house growing up, but we both knew that we were special, in different ways, to my dad. I was considered dad's princess while my sister was dad's kindred spirit that he would leave funny Far Side comics for on the refrigerator. Watching Maddie with her daddy reminds me of the high expectations my dad had of us but there not being any doubt in our minds that we were loved. My dad was a bit of a paradox to me. In so many ways he was not a traditional Japanese - we did not grow up with a lot of Asian traditions (that came later in life thanks to my Aunt Suzye). On the other hand, there was not a lot of "I love yous" or affection. I observed him with his parents, my grandparents, and there was this unstated sense of "I love you." I knew my dad cared about each of us kids and that he loved us. To some extent, I am like him in that I tend to not be overly affectionate with my family - mom, brother, sister, and poor hubby. It's almost like I expect everyone to just know that I love them (this is a realization as I type this, by the way).

Now, as I watch Maddie with her daddy, I appreciate that he cuddles with her and verbally tells her, every day, "I love you." It is a physical closeness that I never experienced and reminds me of a statement about how dads are the first men that daughters fall in love with. I believe that to be true as I watch Maddie and her Daddy together. Surprisingly, it's not something I'm jealous of, I love it. To me, it just feels weird to have this sudden release of not being the only one that Maddie prefers. I love their bond. 

Hmmm...I guess I found something to blog about, eh? :o)