Every morning my daughter and I go outside for some fresh air. She feeds her chickens and plays and explores and walks around with her dog while I follow her around and have a cup of coffee. 

This morning, my girl grabbed one of her coffee cups from her toy kitchen and brought it outside with her while she walked with her dog and pretended to take sips out of it. 

Guys. I stood there watching her with her toy coffee cup, walking around with her animals, and I cried giant baby tears. 

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Everyone always says your kids mimic you and they learn by watching you, but at that moment she really was 100 percent doing what she sees me do every single day, and it hit me how much she is learning life by watching me. 

She looks like me, and she has her dad’s personality, and she has an old soul full of bravery and joy—those are things she comes by naturally. But the day-to-day, how to live life, the habits, the way we talk and live and interact with each other . . . she’s learning those every moment.

Every single thing we do and say, she is learning and forming who she will grow to be one day. She’s a sponge soaking it all in. And I am sitting here realizing I am more responsible than ever to make sure the water she is soaking in is the best of the best. 

I want her to see us loving each other above all else and finding the positive side of all our circumstances and taking care of animals and enjoying a good cup of coffee and laughing every day and being a good human and telling God thank you for our food and watching the sun rise and set and appreciating the magic of seeds becoming flowers and all the awesome amazing things in life.

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And the best part is I get to do that. God thought it good to place this soul in our family and to let us show her all these things. We have a giant responsibility, but wow, we have the biggest privilege ever to have a part in raising a soul up for God. 

I wiped away my tears, stored all this in my heart, said thank you to Jesus, and I went over and poured some of my coffee with cream into her toy cup so she could take real sips not just pretend ones, much to her joy. 

What an awesome journey parenthood is.

Originally published on the author’s Facebook page