I’ve had one of the most joyous nights in a while.  Getting ready for the Modern Media Man Summit the past five months has totally consumed my time and focus.

Going on the trip to and from Atlanta with Ron Mattocks, helped bring me back to what’s most important, my kids.

Tonight I get to see my three daughters thanks to the incredible abuses of the Texas family law system.  But we will make the time the best possible.

But last night, I got to spend time with my 6-year-old daughter from my second marriage.  She and I have not spent much time together since March and after just 16 hours with her, (Of course 9.5 of them she was sleeping) I can’t describe how I miss it.

To my 6-year-old daughter, I am her daddy.  That’s as much as I want to say about that.  I’m what she knows as a dad.  And my own three know me the same, they know that dad is going to be there when others fail them.   But that’s another story. I’m also pining over the loss of time with my three boys from my second wife.

So what did my daughter do and say to warm my heart last night?  Here’s a sampling:

“These red curtains (in living room) look like a girl’s house.” They’re maroon with tan shears.  Seriously.  

“Daddy, how come your tummy hangs down?” Yes, I know, I need to lose weight.

What did she want for dinner?  “Chicken wings.” Oh, and a dollar for games, and then another dollar for games because she “wasted it on the toy game and it took her money.” A dollar was all she got.

Holding her broomstick horse as we drove to school top down in the convertible this morning, “This is my horse and your horse is the car.  Giddy up.”

And then when she got out of the car in front of the school, she did something my other three won’t do any longer.  She turned around, I blew her a kiss and she blew one back.  What a shame our kids have to grow out of where this is okay to do.

It was great to feel like an active dad again and to know that no matter what all is going on between the adults in the equation, there’s still an incredible love for me in her heart.  And it’s a love that is just as unconditional as I have between my own daughters.  We’re all struggling through some tough times, but when it comes to the end of the day, I still have red curtains and I don’t think they look like a girls’ house.

And now she’s also an Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros‘ fan.  We kept playing “Home” over and over.  She kept trying to whistle the main tune.  It was priceless.

“Home is whenever I’m with you” never sounded so sweet.

One last thing, in the whole time I was with her, she never said the word, “Bagina.” What a relief.