Seven months after I decided to uproot my family to Houston, Texas and the ongoing settling in period for us all is going well. Myself and my wife are in full-time work and Lily is in nursery three days a week making new friends and enjoying her time there. I’m so thankful that God has continually looked out for us and blessed us on an upper echelon type of level. I’m overwhelmingly grateful.

I wish I could update on The Daddy Diaries more often, but I am just a person that is trying to live and take in each new experience and cater to my daughter and my family every day. It’s hard to make time to sit down and write and remember all that has gone on so far. I’m just very blessed to be able to spend days, weeks, months and years with my daughter – I really appreciate that quality time we have. I never want to miss that or be distracted from it. It’s a constant battle I have.

What has impressed me most is how well Lily has adjusted and grown up during her time here. She’s bonded with her grandparents and cousins, and now her friends at nursery on a completely enhanced level of play and appreciation. There’s so much happiness and love emanating from her when around these people and that allows her to appreciate her parents even more and the time she has with them. Being around people with differing ages, old and young – has made her vocabulary, conceptual thinking, situational play and understanding develop so quickly. I thought I had reached my pinnacle of pride with this little chick, but I keep surpassing this level on a daily basis. I’m truly impressed with her growth and how easily she has adapted to life here. Lily is really good at observing and adapting to different environments and it’s astonishing to see.

However with the good comes the difficult – the things that parents have to deal with but not want to have to deal with. I have a nearly daily battle with Lily trying to get her to do what I need/want her to do which obviously ranges from a lot of things. Sometimes, it’s very amusing and I have to admire her tenacity and smarts of getting around things. However, it’s something I am trying to curb and stamp out in a natural way. The whole “Why” question is now a part of everything, even after I’ve answered this question ten times. Yet, she always wants everything explained a numerous amount of times. Lily now has the free will to do what she wants, what her logic wants her to do. Like a rebelling vibe to her now that makes me her lash out with moaning, screams, throwing toys and hitting the floor with her hand. And that enhances her frustration and level of tantrums. And as someone who used to have temper tantrums when younger, I totally see similarities and I completely understand it. Now because of all this, discipline and threats have become a part of my parenting arsenal. I’ve definitely become the bad strict dad for Lily now. And I’m trying to be more and more patient and to work even more with my wife so that we are tackling this in the right way and from the same kind of vibe. Naturally, we do disagree on some things as I’m very headstrong and impulsive but we work it out very well in the end. It’s a new testing time for us both but it’s one that I’m willing to tackle and take on. Reiteration and repetition and togetherness are going to help us in this instance.

The weird funny thing is that Lily is very well behaved, very smart, observant, loving, caring, very funny and attentive. The good qualities really outweigh the bad, even if the bad parts can sometimes tarnish a very good day. We still play, have a laugh, chat gibberish together for fun, make funny faces, cook and eat pretend food for each other, watch Kids’ movies and TV (I’ve got her into American Football too) amongst other things. And we still have bedtime stories and prayers (if she’s been good, but I always pray over her anyway).

I still get joy, love and happiness just looking at this little girl’s face. Apparently, I’m her Daddy Prince and of course she’s my Princess Lily and we also got “pretend married” and had our “pretend first dance” yesterday! Lucky me! Happy she holds me in such a high regard, especially as she doesn’t like a lot of boys in general. Haha!