Tie your shoelaces to my shoelaces.

I have been blessed to have both a wonderful father and a wonderful husband. (My dad is the reason I survived my mother. ) They both love me fiercely, but very differently. In the early years of my marriage, my husband felt like he was falling short because he wasn't my dad. I explained to him that the roles and methodology were vastly different...

Dad gets you a whole box of cookies, because he knows they are your favorite. Husband, knowing how you obsess about your weight, says, "are you sure you want to eat that?" because he doesn't want you to beat yourself up later.

Dad, seemingly mythic no matter how old you are, takes the whole world in his hands and tells you everything is going to be okay, in a way that always makes you feel he is somehow larger than it. Husband tells you the world is huge, but it's okay, you no longer have to walk through it by yourself.

Different.

With our first daughter due any day now, my husband is about to get messed up. He is about to understand me and my dad first hand.

The minute they put her in his arms, it will be over for him.

He will instantly tie his shoelaces to her shoelaces, (Thanks to 'The Choir' for that awesome phrase~I cannot take credit) and never again will he be unconnected, unaffected... by the choices she makes, the pain she experiences, the joys she inhales. 

When she is sad, he will realize that no matter her age, he will always be dad. Able to shut the shades on the world and make it all go away.  

You see dads teach their sons how to be men, how to stand on their own. But with daughters, there will always be something in them that protects...

He will want to crush anyone that ever breaks her heart.

He will be surprised at how little he says "no."  Because believe me, in a contest between dad and my husband over who says "no" more often, dad never had a chance.

He has no idea that from the time she puts her tiny hand in his, to the time her bigger hand holds his going down an aisle, all the way through to the time when her hands start to show her age, that she will always see herself as his little girl.

He will be the man who sets the bar for how she should expect to be treated by men.

And she will will love him in a way he doesn't know or understand yet. And it will mess him up.