It has happened. Right before my very eyes, my baby girl has started school. Now I get to worry about how the real world is treating her outside of the protection of her mother and father. Is she making friends? Are her friends being good friends to her? Is she learning anything? Does she miss her mom? dad? little brother?

Well, after the first two days of school, those worries are still there; however, she absolutely loves school and looks forward to going each day. Andrea is doing ok, not great, but better than I expected. There isn’t much we can do about the fact that our kids are growing up, except embrace this stage the same way we have every other stage.

Enjoy the photos.

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That’s my little boy – Asher James Mills – just minutes after coming into this world 10 weeks early. Man he gave us a scare. He gave LOTS of us a scare. I was happy, sad, optimistic, terrified, pissed, blessed and calm all at the same time. It was a bizarre feeling that I hope I never have to feel again. The first few weeks were pretty crazy, and you can read about much of it here, but today I focus on the now. I focus on how far my little guy has come and how much he has helped so many people grow – including me.

Happy Birthday Asher.

Jadyn had an accident at Kroger, hitting her head on a shopping cart requiring 6 stitches. As I’ve outlined once before, watching your child fearfully looking on as the Doctor walks into the room, ready to stitch her up is not easy, but at least it was easier the second time around.

Jadyn is doing fine (and so are mom and dad for that matter), but is tired and has told me multiple times that she doesn’t want to hit her head ever again.

…and I thought Asher was going to be trouble for us….

As cool as traveling is (take this week alone – I’ll be taking in an NBA game, a rodeo and one of the greatest steak places in all of the land), the actual TRAVEL part of traveling sucks.  Being away from my kids is getting harder and harder and my wife, unfortunately, gets the shaft as she has to battle the kids alone – multiple weeks out of the year.

I love my job.  And I’m fortunate – no blessed – to have a job that takes care of my family, and allows me to see some pretty cool places.  This is just one part of my job that is never easy….

As a side note, you may notice that I try and post a lot of photos to my twitter account when I’m traveling. The reason? So my little girl can see what her daddy is doing (see, I’m not trying to rub it in your faces!) I got the idea from this commercial – one of my favorites.

The little boy, that is…

The above was taken during my video chat date with my little girl.  It was the first time I’ve spoken with her in nearly two weeks.  She was pretty excited and told me about her time at Chick-Play (translated Chik-fil-a).  It was a cool moment to connect with my baby girl and hear her ask “Daddy, can you come home now?”  Talking with her on the phone is fun, but watching her talk to me as nearly 1700 miles separate us.  Technology is pretty cool, isn’t it?

Check out her smile….

Shortly after I turned 20, I was lucky enough to “lock in” the girl of my dreams. As two newly weds under the legal drinking age, we couldn’t rent a car so that really limited where we could go, so we went to Gatlinburg, stayed in the mountains and tried to figure out if we were crazy, stupid, ambitions, smart (or all of the above) for getting married so early.

Fast forward 7 years and two kids later, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There is a theory out there that after 7 years people tend to re-evaluate their relationship. I’m pretty sure that number has shrunk a bit, but just go with me for a bit….

Andrea and I have not had extended time away, just the two of us, since our honeymoon 7 years ago. I feel we do a pretty good job finding time for ourselves, but going away, for more than a few days, without the kids, was long overdue. We did a lot of re-evaluation this week and came to the same conclusion – we are two very lucky people who love each other now more than we did when we first got married.

I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about marriage or parenting; heck, most of the time I’m learning from mistakes – but at least I learn and progress. It took me 7 years to realize how important it was to get away with my bride. We both love our kids, and missed them while away, but we also have missed each other a lot the past 7 years.

I don’t plan on making that mistake again.

When was the last time you went away with just your signification other?

I am now in the the 2nd week of a 3 week stint away from home.  Last week had me in Vegas on business.  This week I’m in Florida enjoying a second honeymoon with my bride (no kids) and next week, I’ll be back in Vegas on business.

On Saturday, we drove to ATL to visit Andy.  We spent both Saturday and Sunday with him, and took off for Florida early Monday morning.  On our way out of Atlanta, an SUV ran a red light and I subsequently ran into him – hard.  We t-boned the drivers side of the car so bad that both windows blew out and a firetruck had to cut him out of the car.  Andrea and I are ok (both a little sore in the back and neck region), but our vehicle was still drivable, so we continued on our way.

It is pretty evident that we can’t have a simple vacation.  Last year, it was Asher’s birth.  This year, a freaking car accident on our way to the beach.  Oh well, at least we keep things exciting…

On our way to FLA, we were able to connect with Clayton Bell, a church planter that we connected with through Asher’s birth.  It was so great to finally “meet” Clayton in person and I’m excited for him and his ministry at TNLC.

The last few hours of the drive to our destination here on Fort Myers Beach finally started to feel like vacation.  After a quick stop at WalMart for groceries, we arrived at the condo and settled in.  The photo below was taken during sunset on Tuesday.  It was great to just be able to sit on the beach and talk.  We both were able to read books, nap and get up and walk whenever we wanted – something we haven’t been able to do for a very long time as parents of young kids.

Today it is rainy, so a trip to the outlet mall is in order.  It looks like the weather should clear up tomorrow so we’ll be back on the beach in no time!

I’ve made it pretty clear before, I worry a lot about my little girl and how easily the world can beat down the confidence that she displays every day. She is truly beautiful and completely innocent. Let me explain…

If you don’t know, my daughter is extremely outgoing and knows no boundaries when it comes to ages. For example, she loves on her big cousin like they are the same age – she doesn’t know any different. So when the neighborhood girls were out selling lemonade, my baby girl wanted to be out there with her. Jade is 4, these girls and 7, 8 and 9 – in other words, Jade is still rolling with training wheels while these girls cruise around on their cool mountain bikes.

Does Jadyn care? Nope…

So today, while the girls were out again, Jade ran outside to play with them. All was well until the girls started playing hide-and-seek and Jadyn was it. So what did the older girls do? They decided they were bored with the game and went inside while my baby girl was outside still looking for them (not sure if they were trying to ditch her or not, but we’re guessing so). My wife found her behind our neighbor’s house still searching for her new “friends” that were “hiding”….

It broke my heart to hear what had happened – and I get the same kind of feeling even as I type this. Jadyn has pretty thick skin, and I hope it stays that way as she didn’t realize that the older girls had ditched her – she just thought they were really good at the game – but one of these days she’ll put the pieces together and she’ll break down…and I’ll be right here to help her understand that she is a part of something bigger…

I can’t control the world, but I can control the type of environment my kids grow up in. This is a perfect example of that environment. Brent and Tam do a great job with their kids and despite the worldly troubles that kids find themselves in, their daughter fought through it and hung on to something bigger than her. That is the kind of hope I find myself hanging on to while my baby girl goes out playing with the girls in our neighborhood….

As it typical of most days, my wife was giving me the “run down” of the days events as I was sitting with her for dinner.  I love hearing about her day and all the crazy things the kids got into.  Well today she painted an interesting picture of how my daughter views the roles of a Man and a Woman when it comes to work….

Jadyn wanted to call one of my wife’s female friends.  My wife had to tell her that she couldn’t call her because she was at work.  My daughter thought she was joking as she laughingly replied, “Mom, she isn’t at work.  Only Daddy’s go to work.”

Wow.  My wife quickly explained that a lot of Moms and Dads have to work, and that she should feel lucky that her mom is able to stay home with her.

As parents, we don’t want to pigeon hole our kids in anyway, but it is clear that Jade sees work as the responsibility of the Dad because that is the world she exists in.  My mom stayed at home, Andrea’s mom stayed at home, and now Andrea stays at home.  Who knows what Jadyn will end up doing, but it forced me to think through the fact that Jadyn is really sifting through life right now.  She is drawing conclusions and developing her own opinions on how things should work.  She is watching ME and developing an idea of how fathers treat their children, and how husbands treat their wives.

She is growing up way too fast….

4 years ago, my life changed completely.  My first child as born – a beautiful little girl.  At that moment, I knew I had to grow up fast and never looked back (ok, I looked back a lot that year).  Jadyn has been one of the coolest things to come along in my life and I look forward to watching her continue to grow.  What a beautiful little girl.

I love you, Jadyn.  Happy Birthday!

Tonight after dinner, I had to do something for the very first time – confront my daughter about something she did, and then listen to her lie about it.  Here is what happened…

I installed landscaping lights in the front of our house, but have moved a few of the lights around after burying them, so there are a few patches of peaking wire hanging out from the landscaping rocks.  On my way to Church Council meeting last night, I noticed that someone had pulled the entire wire out from under the ground.  So I naturally assumed my daughter was involved and approached her about it….

Me – “Jadyn…can you come here?  Jadyn, did you pull out the wire in Daddy’s landscaping?”
Jadyn – “No”
Me – “Well if you didn’t, who did?”
Jadyn – “Ron and Paul”
Me – “Who is Ron and Paul”
Jadyn – “Workers that were working on the wire”

By this time, I can hear my wife laughing out loud and she can see where this is going.  I bring Jadyn into my office, sit her down on a chair and look her in the eye and say…

Me – “Jadyn, you know its wrong to not tell the truth, right?”
Jadyn – “Right”
Me – “So tell me the truth, did you pull Daddy’s wire out”
Jadyn – “Nope”

By this time I start laughing out loud right along with my wife.  As I start laughing, so too does my daughter.  I had to pull it together and FAST!  I finally was able to connect with Jadyn, and she owned up to the fact that the neighbor girl and her did it but the journey to that point was a tough one!

Today’s example: the baby gate. We’ve had this freaking thing for months, I still don’t know how to work this thing. In fact, I don’t even know how to get it “off” the stairs….

My wife and sister-in-law are the same way. They all have that water gene. My wife was close to mastering wakeboarding, wakesurfing, and will have sky skiing down next.

This past weekend, I got to watch the Heffelfinger-water-gene come out in my beautiful little niece, Lex. Take a look at some rockstar edits of Dad and his little girl wakeboarding.