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Truth be told, the idea of the girls growing older has Hill a bit worried. Already she is looking for self-help books about dads and teenage daughters. "He's going to be so strict," she says. "He means good. But you don't want him going so far it's unrealistic." Especially regarding boys. Predicts Hill: "I can see him saying, 'He's sitting too close to her! Go do something about it! Go tell him!' He'll send me to go do it."
If nothing else, Hill and McGraw are hands-on parents. Nearly five years have passed since they got the scare of their lives when Audrey was born eight weeks early, her lungs undeveloped, weighing only 3 lbs. 11 oz. She was whisked into neonatal intensive care, and her parents could not even hold her for a few days. Hill called the separation "the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life." Today Audrey is "the feistiest one of them all," says Hill, adding with a laugh, "She's still attached to my umbilical cord. She senses me, smells me, and there's no one that can pull her off me."
Except perhaps, her dad. From their home outside Nashville, McGraw takes turns with Hill driving the girls to school and Maggie to dance classes. He helps coach Gracie's school basketball team, and both parents are regulars at her games. McGraw has garbage duty, though he admits, "everybody else has more chores than me." Indeed, Hill expects her daughters to "be responsible for their own things. There's nothing better than washing your clothes and cooking your own food." Hill tells her girls to "clean your plates; don't waste," and turn out the lights: "When I was growing up, if you left a room, that light should be turned off. Period." ("If Faith's mom comes to our house," McGraw says, chuckling, "the first thing she says is, 'I wouldn't want to pay the light bill!'") As for her husband's habit of letting dirty clothes fall where they may, "We gotta whip you into shape," she tells him. "If you don't pick up your clothes, they're not going to pick up their clothes either."
