My Sweet 16

My youngest daughter, Brooklyn, turns 16! (Dec 18)  She is such an amazing young lady - but she is still my little girl.

Brookie truly is my wife's daughter, getting all of Melissa's best traits:  Beautiful, smart, hard working, conscientious, loyal, strong willed, etc...I'm happy that she also got some of my good ones as well:  Sensitive, flexible, fun loving, serious but not too serious, etc.

The best thing for Brook is she didn't get hardly any of me and my wife's bad traits - especially not mine :)

I last wrote about Brooklyn on her 13th birthday, and she has grown so much - including much of the crazy-train which comes with being a middle-teen girl.  But, in this past three years she hasn't grown too big for her own britches, and continues to be the sweetest child...She is still my baby and I her daddy.  She still plays with me, goes to our yearly Veteran's Day celebrations, cuddles, tells me her stories, sings in the car with the window down (summer or winter), and she's my 'Katy Kat'.

Those with good memories may remember for her 13th birthday I said she was my 'Katy Smash Up Kid'...She hasn't changed, and this is still the perfect song for my 16 year old Brookie.  It's the song we've sang together more than any other.

Here's how I put it when she turned 13:

"Overall, Brooklyn is a Katy Perry song - or even better, she's a 'Smash-Up' of them all...Forget the hyper-sexual nature of Katy's songs (most of our culture, for that matter).  Katy Perry songs are about enjoying life, getting over yourself, spontaneous craziness, adapting to life's stresses and difficulties, having fun, getting along with others, and pushing to succeed.  In other words, they are about my youngest daughter - no longer a 'tweener,' but I'm pretty certain she'll always remain a good kid-at-heart."

She's growing up tremendously, but she's still the same great kid.

Since the time when I was Brooklyn's age, I've had two goals in life (I figured if I could reach these goals everything else would work out fine - I've been right), and one theory for parenting:

Goal 1:  Be a good spouse...Doing so would help assure the second.
Goal 2:  Be a good parent.
1 Theory for Parenting:  Parents should exist for their children.  Not vice versa.

I hope I have been a good parent for Brooklyn...She deserves nothing less.

Happy 16th birthday, Brookie.  I love you so much - Daddy