He looks at her with puzzlement.  "It's a baby" he says, "right?"

We laugh.  Oh we laugh a lot.  And we tease him.  He grimaces when she crawls near him, and he hands napkins to other people to wipe her drool with.  He shakes his head, turns to his wife, "I dunno babe, I dunno..." and she laughs too.  He nearly leaves when she has a messy diaper.  Her crying is so foreign - "Can't you just tell her to stop?" He is only half joking. Time passes and he learns to smile at her and say hello if she wanders near him, but still he doesn't want to touch her.

That was 7 months ago.

Today, he went to her crib when she woke up.  He called her sweetheart, and lifted her into his arms. His dashboard is covered in chewed up and sneezed out raisin remnants.  His keyboard is full of sticky fingerprints.  His cell phone is hers whenever she is around. He buys her ice cream and pushes her in the pink stroller.  Although it is his wife I call when I need a sitter, it is him who does the sitting.  He holds her on one arm, her round diapered tush balanced just right and her not so petite body looking tiny and feminine in his arms.  He jiggles her a little and when she smiles he says, "I just LOVE this kid!"

God is so amazing isn't he? To reshape ones entire spirit, through love, so entirely... so completely.  Amazing.