Things That Dads Dream To Hear

This has been an interesting year for my older daughter, Karina. She is my big girl and I love her to death, but she has had her share of small challenges when it comes to school. One of the biggest issues (I hope she won’t feel embarrassed for me saying this) is that she deals with astigmatism as well as far sightedness. Because of that, she has had to wear glasses for several years and it’s been a challenge for her to do things that some kids take for granted. Reading is not an easy thing for her, and sometimes she has to go over sections a number of times to make sure that she gets everything.

This past year, Christina has really given a lot of up front time and attention to Karina to help her get more comfortable with reading, and especially more challenging passages. I am happy to say that that effort looks to have paid off! Yesterday was Karina’s and Amber’s Parent/Teacher conferences, and both of them were very positive and complementary. Added to that, though, were some things that were said about Karina that made me a very proud daddy indeed.

We were very excited when we saw that she had earned all A’s and one B, and had secured a spot on the Honor Roll at school. Yep, that would be a moment to make a parent proud, but that’s not the one that I’m writing about today… the one that really made me feel great was to hear her teacher say (somewhat paraphrased and second hand, mind you :) )…

“we are really happy that Karina was elected by her class to serve as the class representative to the Student Council, because she is such a wonderful role model to the other students. She is always very polite, very supportive of others, and she is kind and considerate to everyone. She doesn’t have any attitude, and I am so happy that she seems to be above and beyond all the “girl drama” that’s so common at this age.”

Really, seriously, that’s a fabulous report, but even if the top Honor Roll part hadn’t happened, hearing the second part of the conference would have made my day just as well. Often, we hope that we are teaching our children to be good citizens and good friends to those around them, and hoping that things like morality, ethics and integrity shine through at key moments. I’ve been so happy to see the many times that they do, and it gives me hope that my Heavenly Father may actually trust me with these very precious loans of three spirit children of his. It’s days like this, and comments like this, that make me feel like I and Christina might actually be doing something right! Trust me, we get ample opportunity at other times to feel exactly the opposite (LOL!), so for today, hey, I’ll take the other sentiment ;).