Daddy’s Home
Posted by Eric (February 9, 2010 at 1:57 am)
This evening I walked into the house a little late—around 5:45 after first stopping at the library for four copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and then dropping my assistant Matt off at home to spare his wife, eight weeks with child, from having to drag their two little boys out into the cold to pick him up—and my four-year-old daughter Mary (who is a pixie) cried, “Daddy’s Home!” and ran—not into my arms—but back into the dining room where dinner was warm and ready to eat.
Several people have expressed curiosity about the reference to “vandalism” in my sketchy notes to Sarah Paraskeva’s birth story. I’m impressed that people are actually reading the notes, which are there to help me finally finish the full account of her birth story.
Here is a photo of a block tower I made with my son Nate. Nate is 14 and, some might say, too old to play with blocks. But I am 40 and not too old to play with blocks—or perhaps I am too old not to play with blocks. In any case, getting to play with blocks at 40 is one of the benefits of being a father, and getting to play with blocks at 14 is one of the benefits of having a father who loves to play with blocks.
A few Saturdays ago day I beheld a delightful thing: three little girls were dancing around together in an open space in one of the party rooms of a restaurant. They were dressed up in fancy dresses and I suppose it made them feel like princesses of ballerinas. Their dance somehow combined elegant pirouettes with the bunny hop. A fourth, much littler girl tentatively tried to join in while the little brother of one of girls watched them, gleefully giggling at their silly, joyful dance.