What's so good about being a dad? (Part 2)

OK, one year on - what's so great about being a daddy...
Jazmin is so much more fun now, since she is much more mobile and eloquent. Those are the two main positives - the sight of her little body running around after the cat, or playing studiously with sand and water in the sandpit. She pipes up with the funniest sayings like "Shrek Donkey" and "mummy" (when looking at me).

She is still pretty violent with Odie, pulling him around by his hair and pushing him off chairs that she wants to sit in. Each time we catch her being rough we tell her to be gentle, sometimes even practising the gentle stroking motions with her but it needs some more practice, I think. Odie doesn't seem to mind, but we are trying to teach her to share and be nice when playing.
She often breaks out in peals of laughter when I hold her up in the air and then lower her tummy onto my shaking head. The motion or the feeling of my head on her tummy must be exciting, because she cackles the most enjoyable and happy laughs.

One of the challenges we weren't facing before is the flexibility of nappies. Jazmin has discovered how to take her nappy off and regularly greets us in the morning by handing her nappy to us while standing stark naked in her cot. We have gone past the "scolding" stage, the "praising good behaviour" stage, the "ignoring it" stage and now we are in the sticky tape stage. Every night we tape the nappy tags so she can't open them. Nappy stays on and the bed stays dry.
Her language seems to be deveoping exponentially. I know I'm going to fondly remember the times when we didnt have a little miss chatterbox, but the words she is putting together are really impressive. The most recent one is "bling bling" whenever she sees jewelry - usually accompanied by an outstretched hand to grab it! It's extremely fun and entertaining to see her practising new words and babbling away with a commentary as she plays with her toys.

She's really getting into saying "Daddy" and "Mummy" - usually when pointing to the wrong person just for laughs. We are also enjoying the personality development - where she gives us a defiant look before doing something she knows we don't like, as if to say "I dare you to stop me". We stop her anyway and explain why she can't do what she was trying to do, but the facial expressions she makes are better than anything we could have imagined.

Her personality also shows in other ways - insisting on heping take out the garbage, pushing the shopping trolley with us and walking through the shops with a parent holding each hand! Efforts to stop her are met with indignant protests and a look that says "just what do you think you're doing? Don't you know my way is the only way?"

I wouldn't trade it for anything.