Barn Raising

Here's a sweet story to illustrate how completely little girls (Harper) have their daddies (Daniel) wrapped around their fingers.

Living in the city, in a condo without storage, our little family is short on space. To make our arrangement manageable everything we own is "low-profile" or "space-saving" or "compact." When we were expecting our little bundle, we had to be much more discerning about baby gear than most people we know because we literally had no place to put it. One of our pregnancy low points was wandering the aisles at Babies 'R Us registering for gear, with Daniel grumbling about where we were going to put all this ... let's say "stuff" ... while the hormonal mommy-to-be cried. We were a sight.

Fast-forward one year. We're at Babies 'R Us getting a baby present for a friend, and a space-saving highchair for us, and I tell Daniel that I think it would be nice if we got Harper some sort of sit-up-and-play toy, now that she's upright all the time. Knowing that our relatively small quarters are an issue, I point out to Daniel a small tray-type toy, pretty compact, in the $20 price range, thinking that he'll likely nix the idea entirely. I'm mildly surprised when he heads down that toy aisle to look at the available options. So you can imagine my great surprise when he comes back to me a few minutes later with a huge smile on his face, carrying a ginormous toy barn ... nothing compact about it ... certainly no place to hide it in our little condo. It is also the most expensive toy in the aisle.

Nothing but the best for Daniel's little angel!

Teasing aside, Harper ADORES the barn. We play with it every single night. She bops to the music and sorts the shapes and opens/closes the door and flips the light switch on/off: daddy did really, REALLY good. And he looks so cute wrapped around her little finger.