Almost a year to the day since Anna Nicole Smith passed away, leaving guardianship of her infant daughter up to DNA, Larry Birkhead appears to be making the most of his hard-won fatherhood.
"The baby loves him, and he is a hands-on dad," a source close to Birkhead exclusively told E! News. "When he leaves the room, she cries for him. It is not like a fake-dad thing.
"Even before she could talk, she would cry for daddy when he left the room. They are very bonded. She puts her arms out like any kid would do for her dad."
Birkhead, who took his 17-month-old daughter to the Bahamas this week to visit Smith's grave, won custody of the child in April, shortly after paternity tests confirmed that he and not Howard K. Stern was her biological father.
The 35-year-old former paparazzo—"He can't be a celebrity photographer anymore because he is a celebrity," the source said—and Dannielynn live in Smith's Studio City, California, home, which was among the assets listed in the reality-TV star's will, and pass the days running errands and doing other normal family stuff.
Their living arrangement is "kind of weird, but in a way a very fitting and appropriate thing, because it is a way for Anna to be part of her life," E! News' insider said.
"But they are surviving and happy, and their daughter is beautiful. She looks exactly like both of them. If [Smith] were alive, she would be happy to know that her daughter is thriving with a wonderful, loving father. He really does love her."
Smith died on Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida of an accidental overdose of prescription medications.
While Birkhead has largely been putting his shutterbug skills to work as the official chronicler of his daughter's formative years, it's possible he could be the one on the other side of that lens one of these days.
The source said the Kentucky native has considered doing a reality show but is unsure at this point if it's ever going to happen.
"Professionally, he is not doing that much, just managing all the lawsuits."
In addition to fending off a countersuit brought against him by his former attorney and custody-battle ally Debra Opri—after he sued her for legal malpractice and fraud, accusing her of racking up bogus expenses and stashing money he was paid for media appearances in her client trust account—he is involved in miscellaneous litigation involving Smith's estate.
A hearing scheduled for Tuesday regarding Stern's petition to have Dannielynn named Smith's sole heir has been postponed until Mar. 14 at the request of Birkhead's new attorney, Adam Streisand (Barbra's reported relative who was bounced from Britney Spears-related proceedings on Monday after a judge ruled the singer hadn't been fit to retain counsel when she hired him).
As for Stern, whom Birkhead seemingly warmed up to after Smith's death, even though they continued to fight over Dannielynn, "They have made peace with each other," E! News' source said. "They are cordial, and they have a common enemy in Anna's mother [Virgie Arthur]."
Because Smith made out her will five years before Dannielynn was born, her late son, Daniel, was her sole beneficiary. Daniel died in September 2006, three days after his sister's birth. Stern, the executor of Smith's estate, has argued that the ex-Playmate surely would have wanted to include her daughter in her will.
Meanwhile, father and daughter are in the Bahamas, where Smith was buried next to Daniel—after yet another hard-fought battle, this time over custody of her remains.
"It's tough," Birkhead told Entertainment Tonight of the decision to take Dannielynn to Nassau. "Even though she doesn't understand, it was important for us to come. One day I can tell her that we went to visit her mom."
While the two graves remain unadorned at this time, Birkhead said the headstone in the works for Smith's grave is going to be "so grand and big. It's going to encompass Daniel's stone, too."
"I don't like the fact that they're here, I never did," he continued. "I know that Daniel didn't want to be here, and I know his mother was only here because of what was going on between us with the paternity question. To me, it feels really odd."
But the decision to alter Smith's and her son's final resting places will be up to Dannielynn one day, Birkhead said.
"I'm going to leave the decision to Dannielynn when she's older. It would probably be very hard, if not impossible, to take both of them, and I definitely don't want to separate them."