a father's heart

sarah and the girls had a lot of fun today. they visited their cousins. they went to the orrville library. and they ate lunch at buehler's. daddy got to sit in a cubicle, just like any other weekday. the drab colors of the office carpet, walls, and cubicle cages is making daddy think of changing his favorite color to tan. daddy's going crazy.
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friday's are fun b/c we eat pizza and stay up late watching a movie. okay, 'late' means the girls are in bed at 8, and we usually hit the hay around 10. but we watched peter pan (the animated disney version), which the girls seem to love more than princess gummies. i can't say it's a bad flick myself.
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i may have said this in a prior entry, but it was on my heart again today... well, tonight mainly. it's probably a thought that goes through every parent's head at one point during the raising of a child, but i feel many times that the girls will never really love me. my name has become 'daddy,' but it's almost a nostalgic verbalization of who i really am, like they're playing house or some other cute childhood game. the way they look at me most of the time shines out of their eyes from their souls, where they really loathe me. i have no excuse other than 'god's not done with me,' but that doesn't help my patience and need to love them regardless. i'm quite the conditional person, but i have grown in this arena, which is probably why i tolerate more now than i ever would have. i owe it all to god, and i look forward to where he'll take me. but until then, parenting is discouraging. it feels like it's been forever, but it's only been three months, which means i'm still new to this. and i think i mentioned to someone at work today that i don't think you ever really arrive at being a good parent b/c you're always learning something new, and each day is a surprise unlike yesterday.
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favorite bible verse read today: 2 kings 25 (the whole chapter) - I just spent the last 28 days reading about how god's chosen people rebelled from god almost rythmically. and on each upbeat, god restored them. i like how 1 and 2 kings is written, b/c it goes back and forth quickly from one king to the next: this isralite king, that king of judah, this one, that one, this one, that one. then in 2 kings 25, the stories almost seem to slow down as god begins to blot his people from the earth, sending them all into exile in babylon. in looking from a father's eyes, it's sad to see the people go, but it's nice to know the rest of the story...
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so you can't tell from the reader's seat, but i just took a 5-10 minute break. sarah was using the laptop while i wrote the above on the desk top. all of our pictures are on the laptop, so i had to wait. she was trying to figure out a good name for her saturday morning soccer team, which is hard when you're jerseys are teal. i think i like 'the teal tapeworms' the best... what better way to strike fear into your opponents than an intestinal parasite. anyway, here are two pictures sarah and i actually took when we were still living at our apartment. the first is by sarah, the second by me. they came to my head tonight for some reason, and i like that they were both taken at 'moments', meaning the picture wouldn't have come out if you jumped the gun or hesitated...