One thing I’ve always loved about P is his desire to learn about everything he possibly can. In fact, one of my first memories of hanging out with him is him taking me to his family’s ranch and giving me a tour of wildlife and nature that Marlon Perkins would have envied.
Whenever we have repairmen of any kind at the house, P will always watch them and ask questions to find out what they are doing and how they are doing it. There is nothing that he likes more than learning a new skill. Thanks to everything he has learned over the years, he was able to contract our entire home remodeling project all by himself and did an incredible job.
As someone who doesn’t necessarily adapt to change or learn new things with much enthusiasm, I completely admire this quality.
The things he has learned that mean the most to me, however, are his skill and heart when it comes to being a husband and a Daddy. P lost his Daddy when he was just 9 years old, so for a good part of his life has relied on memories of his father ,and the examples of other men that took him under their wing to show him what it means to be a man after God’s own heart.
I am not always a peach to live with (hard to imagine, I know), but P rolls with it. He knows how to make me feel less stressed, less worried, and reminds me to just have fun. He makes me want to be the best wife and mama I can be.
And when it comes to being a Daddy, I don’t think I ever dreamed of how much he would love our girl. She adores her Daddy and he adores her right back. There is nothing she likes more than to follow him out to our backhouse and watch him do whatever it is he does back there. He is so patient while he teaches her new skills because he shares that same voracious appetite for learning anything new and understands the need for all the questions. He’ll lean toward her and answer each of her one billion questions until she is satisfied. It makes me love him that much more.
So, today on his 36th birthday I wish him all the love and happiness that his life has brought Caroline and me. I could not be more grateful that of all the things he has learned over the years, that being a husband and a daddy are the ones he does best.