Not seeking advise or anything, but my daughter said “daddy can you hold me” for the first time ever.

A little context - to keep it short I have a dark past and I wasn’t really around for the first year of my daughters life. I was doing well again at that point and visiting with her but I lived far away to get myself together and I missed a lot.Fast forward to now, I’ve lived with her and her mom (we’re together) for the past year (daughter is 2 and change now). So needless to say mom is the favorite when it comes to most things. She’s definitely warmed up big time as far as playing with me and enjoying my presence, ten fold. But recently she’s actually been seeing me as someone she can trust, somebody that can help her, give her what she needs, etc. It’s been incredible to see our relationship grow and it’s been a lot of work. It’s been a lot of dealing with rejection and awkwardness. I’m assuming even without the past and the being around, parenting comes with this anyways.So I made this post just to say, I see first hand how important all of this time is with her. She craves the attention and time we spend with her. She got scared tonight because of some random noise in the house and instead of mommy she said “daddy can you please hold me I’m scared”. Nearly bursted out crying. I don’t look at this as “yay I’ve beat her now” or anything like that. Not a pissing contest. But it fills me with joy every time our relationship grows another little inch and thankfully, with things coming together when they did, she’ll never (or hardly) know about that first year of visits only.Proud to call myself a trying father today, and loving every minute of it. Hats off to all of the parents, no matter the situation. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2SvORH6