Games We Play

One of the things I like best about you is that you make everyone around you happy.   You just do.   It’s fascinating to me because it’s not a problem I have ever had.   Ever.  You are as beautiful and cute as you are vivacious and smart.   Total strangers light up around you.   Total strangers like the Chick-Fil-A cashier, who not only gave you the big kid ice cream when you traded in you Happy Meal toy- she let you into the hallowed inner sanctum of the mysterious land “behind the counter” to MAKE IT YOURSELF.    In your gymnastic leotard.  

 

And your jelly shoes, which you sleep with. 

 

There’s a game we play sometimes when we are hanging out together like his.   I’ll ask you “Hey, do you know what I would rather be doing than hanging out with you?”    You say “What?”   And then I say “Nuuthin!”    Lots of laughs.    Another version is when I ask who I would rather be with than you.   Punch line:  “Noooobooty.”

The other day, we were sitting around slurping smoothies and we played that game.   When I asked what I would rather be doing rather than hanging out with you, you said “Fishing?”    And I, truthfully, said “No.”   Then you said “Drinking beer?”    And again I truthfully said “Nope.”

 

But then you dropped the bomb.   You said “What about drinking beers and fishing…with Santa Claus?”       There was a long pause.  A pause I know you noticed.   A lot of stuff was going through my head.   Where are we fishing?   Is Santa paddling?   What kind of beer is it?   And then, just as before it could dawn on you that your father is an asshole, I leaned in and said “NOPE- still you.”

Sometimes, it’s OK to lie to your children’s faces.   One day, you’ll forgive me.