I see fire and I see rain.  That’s what I was singing today when I got home from work.  What does this have to do with anything you ask?

Today was the day I told the wife I’d cook some steaks on the grill.  Today was also the day it happened to be raining.  Not just your ordinary rain, but I swear it could easily have been mistaken for a monsoon.  I fired up the grill anyways, backed it up to the edge of the garage, and stood just inside the garage door as I cooked some of the best tasting steaks I’ve had in a long time.

What does this have to do with my life as a dad?  Well, nothing really, and I guess the fire and rain part is covered with this story, but the fire I’m talking about has nothing to do with grilling steaks in the rain.  My fire has to do with the fire starter I used to start the grill.

I stood in front of my 10 month old baby girl, and clicked the fire starter.  She followed the flame with her eyes, amazed at what she saw.  Then I took a breath and blew it out.  I did it a few times while she watched.  Then I lit the starter one more time and held it as close to being in front of her as I could where she couldn’t reach out and grab it.  Then the most amazing thing happened…

She took a breath and blew at the flame.  It wasn’t a strong enough breath to blow it out, so I let the flame go out to make her think she did it herself.

She laughed.

Kids are amazing, and Baby L is absolutely the smartest baby alive.