For Christmas, my parents bought me and my brother in law the book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know by Meg Meeker. They heard about it on a radio program and ordered it based on the positive review. Both Mom and Dad read it before giving it to us and thought it was very good.
So far, I’ve read the intro and I’m looking forward to reading it. As a father of three girls, I probably need to. From the intro:

I want you to see yourself through her eyes. And I don’t want this just for her sake, but for yours, because if you could see yourself as she sees you, even for ten minutes, your life would never be the same. …
Your daughter gets up in the morning because you exist. You were here first and she came into being because of you. The epicenter of her tiny world is you. Friends, family members, teachers, professors, or coaches will influence her to varying degrees, but they won’t knead her character. You will. Because you are her Dad.

pp.4-5

Good stuff, and it gives me a lump in my through as I think about it in relation to my girls. I’m going to try to post some things from the book along the way.

In January Audrey turned 7, having her first ‘friend’ birthday party. It was a princess party and she was thrilled. Doug took his annual trip to Toledo to go to the Detroit car show with his Dad. Audrey went along and spent time with Grandma. We also discovered that our Honda Odyssey needed its 2nd new transmission. The first went out under warranty. Thankfully, Honda stepped up to the plate and paid most of the bill on this one too, even at 120,000 miles. Hopefully this one lasts the 4 more years we intend to keep it.
In February Doug and Maria celebrated 13 years of marriage and Jessica turned 11. We also lost a faithful friend as our old Ford Escort that we’d driven for 10 years and 160,000 miles coughed up a clutch. It was a few months earlier than planned, but we gave it to a mechanic friend and got a new car, a Mazda3 hatchback. The Escort was extraordinarily reliable, but boring. The Mazda is sexy and fun hopefully it will be as reliable too.
In March Maria broke her foot, but because of the unusual way it was broken it wouldn’t be diagnosed properly until the end of June.
In April, the Easter Bunny brought a surprise – early on Friday morning. The entire house was criss-crossed in yarn when the kids awoke. Each had a different colored yarn attached to their door and they had to follow it through the house, and even the garage, to find their baskets. It was fun. We then spent the weekend with Doug’s family in Toledo as we do every year. Jessica had her first band concert in April. She also took a field trip to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in NE Ohio. She and Emily also participated in a Girl Scout basketball workshop with the OSU Women’s basketball team.
May brought Emily’s 9th birthday. On Mother’s day we went to the local Mother’s day kite fly, as is our tradition, and this year Mom and Dad were in town and they and Doug’s sister’s family joined us. Jessica graduated from DARE and had her essay, Role Models, chosen as one of four read at graduation and won a medal of recognition for it. At the end of the month we went to Missouri to visit Maria’s family. We spend a day in the Columbia area letter-boxing (and collecting ticks; we had 23 between us). The boxes we chose were particularly remote and challenging, but it was pretty fun in the end. We also spent a day in Illinois visiting Maria’s Grandma. Audrey, still looking for her niche, started a season of soccer. One season was enough; she returned to dance in the fall.
In June, Jessica passed a milestone, graduating from elementary school. How’d that happen? We are not old enough to have a middle schooler! Jessica also had her 8th dance recital. Emily continues to enjoy gymnastics, with small shows at the end of each 3 month session.
In July, our good friends from Wisconsin, the Gillaspie’s, came to visit for a week. It’s always good to see them. We also traveled to Cincinnati to the church where Maria and Doug met for a reunion of the close knit campus ministry that Doug was a part of in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It was so good to see old friends, some that we hadn’t seen in years.
In August the girls spent a week at Girl Scout camp. Mom went too as a counselor. The girls had fun, Maria – not so much. The girls made stepping stones for our front yard and we went to Slate Run park to see a working, 1800’s era farm. We missed Maria’s family reunion camping trip in Rushville, IL to go to Toledo to see Doug’s cousin get married. At the end of the month, the girls returned to school and we officially had a middle schooler. In our district, 6th grader’s have their own school, which is nice. What’s not nice is that Jessica catches the bus at 6:45 AM, which means someone has to get up that early to see her off. We are not morning people in the Schaefer house, but Jessica has adapted fine. Mom and Dad are still rebelling. Ugh.
September saw us add yet another female to the house, and our 4th cat, Cookey. This is Emily’s cat and she’s excited about it. (And no, I didn’t spell ‘Cookey’ wrong, that’s the way that Emily spelled it.) Maria stopped working from home after 9 years and got a job at a CPA firm during school hours. Our church, which we moved here from Michigan to help start, celebrated its 10th anniversary this month as well. Maria finally had surgery on her foot to remove the broken bone. After a couple of months of recovery she’s mostly back to normal.
October brought Maria’s birthday. Maria and Doug went to a church sponsored Salsa party where we learned the Salsa, the Rumba and the Fox Trot. Actually, we learned that we aren’t good dancers, but it was still kinda fun.
November brought Doug’s birthday at Thanksgiving time. As usual, we spent the holiday at Mom and Dad Schaefer’s in Toledo.
We have had the busiest December in a long time, perhaps ever. We started by going to Disney World (the picture is us at the Magic Kingdom). We’ve been looking forward to taking the girls to Disney for years and we had a ball. Our first family trip by plane, a week off of school, meeting Mickey and the gang and dinner with Cinderella was amazing. Not to mention the amazing shows and rides. Doug’s Mom and Dad shared the time with us, which made it that much more special. It was a week we won’t forget. Unfortunately, we retuned to a week of the stomach flu working its way through the family while Maria had her busiest work week since returning to work outside the home, including a 2 day trip out of state. (All of that is also the reason why this letter and card aren’t likely to reach you before Christmas.)
This will be only the second year since Doug was born that he won’t spend Christmas in Toledo. The first was when Maria was pregnant with Audrey, this year his sister is expecting baby #5, so the Schaefer Christmas will be in Columbus. We’ll celebrate at his sister’s house. Then it’s off on the Schaefer Holiday Tour, 2006 where we’ll spend time with Maria’s family in Missouri, Maria’s Grandma in Illinois, back to Missouri, to meet the Gillaspie’s in Illinois and then home to Columbus.
This year also marked a year long growth trend at our church, the Columbus Church of Christ. We’ve had a rough spell for a couple of years, loosing some members and doing some soul searching as a church. This year marked the reversal of that trend as we had baptisms all year on the way to a total of around 17 for the year. It has been quite refreshing for our small church of around 110 at the start of the year.