We eat maple chipotle short ribs, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans while we talk about our day. Our overly animated two year old is wiggling the beans in her teeth and we are laughing hysterically, glancing at each other over the tabletop, and somewhere between bites I think “I’ve really got myself a good one.”

He’s my best friend. He makes me laugh, he makes me think, and he makes me a better person. He balances my ahem… creative chaos. He understands me, listens to me, loves me unconditionally, and is the BEST daddy to our little girl. I’m so glad I married him.

My single friends ask me how I got so lucky, and where did I find a guy like him, and really my answer is simple: I knew what to look for.

I am SO blessed to have grown up in a family where the men were stellar examples of integrity, honesty, and true inner strength. My granddad is amazing- he is SO funny, and when he talks everyone listens. He’s created a legacy- he taught my dad how to be a real man, and how to love his family truly and deeply. My dad was always there for my sister and I- we never had to search for a father figure, because we had two incredible ones in our lives every day.

My dad told us he loved us every day, multiple times a day. He made us feel special, valuable, and cherished. He sent us flowers on valentine’s day when we were in high school, from “one who has loved you from the very beginning.” He took us on “dates,” taught us how to shoot straight, and how to really experience and give love. He told us never to take any crap from anyone, to stand up for ourselves, and how to kill a man with a pencil. (Hey, it’s a life skill!)

When I started dating Graham, I recognized a lot of qualities in him instantly. They were characteristics I knew in my soul, traits that felt like home. It didn’t take very long before I started thinking that he would be an awesome daddy to our babies, an excellent husband, and the perfect person for me to share my life adventure with. I knew what to look for and where to start because my dad, and my granddad, loved me.

Guys, if you are the father of a girl you should know that you are her whole world. Tell her she’s beautiful- take your daughter & wife on dates. Make her feel special, cherished, loved, and valuable. You are laying the foundation of the rest of her life- from you she will learn what it is to be a real man and what to look for in a husband. She gets her value from YOU. So much of the heartache, and feelings of “I can never be good enough, I’m not pretty enough, I’m not skinny enough” that girls experience can be solved by you BEING there for them, and being a true father figure. It’s so important. Every day in my line of work I meet women who feel like they need to lose 30 pounds to be pretty, or don’t believe they will ever be worth something to someone. It breaks my heart, because I know why they feel that way- they needed their daddy to tell them they looked like a princess, and he wasn’t there.

After dinner, I wash the dishes and listen to Graham and Mia playing. She’s laughing her head off as he makes her dinosaurs RAWWWWRRRR at each other. She’s splashing in the tub, and they’re having the best time. She loves her daddy, and she KNOWS he loves her. She doesn’t have to ask. He tells her every day, multiple times a day. She’s his whole world, and he is hers, and one day she will look back and say “I’ve really got a good one. I love you dad.”

Happy Father’s Day everyone.