Hi sweet girl! I know, I know – I just wrote you a letter, but there’s something more I want to share with you. Today is Father’s Day, but even if it weren’t I’d still want to talk to you about that Daddy of yours.

Except, you don’t always call him Daddy these days. Probably just as often you call him “Prince.” This nickname is all part of your Princess mania, and you started using it not long after you began wearing a crown everywhere you went, demanding to be called a Princess. “What are you?” you’d ask me.

“I guess I’m the Queen,” I’d reply. “If you’re the Princess, then the Queen is the Princess’ mama.”

“And what’s Daddy?” you’d ask.

“He’s the King.”

You thought about this for a day or two before you announced, “Daddy is the Prince.”

At first, I tried to talk you out of this because in real life that’s not how things work. But I watched you as you watched some of the Princess videos on the computer. I saw the enchantment on your face as the beautiful Princess danced and twirled in the arms of her handsome, strong and protective Prince. And suddenly I realized that at your age, there could be nothing more appropriate or sweeter than to have you think of yourself as Daddy’s Princess, and he as your Prince.

Sometimes the first thing you say when you wake up from your nap is, “Where is the Prince?” When we’re playing at home on those days Daddy has to work, as soon as we hear the jingle of keys in the door you leap up and start jumping up and down, yelling, “The Prince! The Prince is home!” One day Daddy was doing something uncivilized like making a silly face, and you admonished him. “No Daddy. You’re the Prince.”

The other day we were on a road trip and had just stopped at a gas station to refuel. You and I came out of the restroom – a decidedly un-royal place to be – when you spotted your Daddy across the store. You began running through the aisles of chips and Vienna sausages yelling, “My Prince! My Prince!”

You and your Daddy play so well together. He seems to have an endless supply of imagination and can always come up with new things to do with your old toys. No one can make you laugh quite as loud or as deep as your Daddy does when he tickles you. He’s also very good at aggravating you, which I find amusing. He loves to change the words in a story, or put a baby doll upside-down in a high-chair, or any number of other things that upset the delicate order that you demand of your world. You’ll wail and complain about the way he teases you, but secretly I think you love the attention. I joke with him that he reminds me of an elementary school boy who has a crush on a girl, and pulls her pigtails to show his affection. Except, lucky for you, he also shows his affection with lots of hugs, kisses, and some more tickles too.

Watching you and your Daddy play is something that always makes my heart fill up, simultaneously melting me on the floor. I love you both so much, and to see you two loving each other is the best gift I could imagine.