Someday there will be no one to watch me from the window.

Click to enlarge: Dad with Dee Dee and Kayla (Mimi) in the morning before Dad has gotten out of his robe and combed his hair.

Today I left my 4-year-old Dee Dee at daycare and waved goodbye to her as she stared blankly back through a screened window, standing atop a step stool that allowed her to peer out.

The daycare was full of active kids running and coloring and playing; she would only be there for a few hours, and it's a good, safe, daycare, so there's no particular reason why this one morning should stick with me like burnt coffee.

Almost every night Dee Dee asks me, "Daddy, do you have to go to work tomorrow?" I really enjoy the days I can say No, and enjoy even more the next morning when she comes downstairs to my office, cuddling her blanket and climbing on my lap. Then our morning begins with gummy vitamins, cereal, yogurt, and a boiled egg, until Mom and Mimi rise a little later and the weekend family activities begin.

What's so wrong with wanting to be with Dad more than wanting to run or color or play, for just a few minutes? In those few minutes, I am more important to her than I will be to anyone else for the rest of the day.

Someday soon I'll be heading off to work and there will be no one there to watch me from the window.

[2013-06-10]

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Click to enlarge: My son Charlie with Mimi (Kayla). This is a good picture. Mimi is good natured, and offers an inquisitive, inviting smile when she's not hungry or tired.

When I make the bed for my son (a futon downstairs), I remember my parents making my bed for me; you do those things because you are a parent, but kids don't think of it that way, because, since conception, they've known no different.

When I am making my son's bed, I think of Mom making mine, as she thought of her mom making hers, and so on, memories that live only three to four generations, and then go to heaven.

[2013-02-15]

 

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