Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Color Me Dad

I'm a man. But, I'm a dad first. I'm a daddly man.  
My daughter is beautiful. Everyone tells me so. But, don’t worry; I’ll make sure it doesn't go to her head. People say that she looks like me. That’s great to hear because for the longest time I wasn't sure who she resembled. Then I started thinking: If my daughter is beautiful and she resembles me, does that make me a beautiful man? I mean, I’m not going to lie, I've been told that I’m very handsome—and not just by my mother. But, I've never been told that I’m beautiful. It’s probably just an unspoken kind of thing or politically incorrect thing. Whatever. So, I guess it’s safe to say that my daughter gets her beauty from me and not necessarily from her mother—which is usually the assumption. Not to take any beauty away from my wife, but maybe I’m just more beautiful.

I put the arm in karma. And by arm I mean muscle.
Being away from your child can be very hard. Sometimes a whole day seems like an eternity. Well, not an eternity. An eternity is just a ridiculous exaggeration isn't it? We’ll just say it can be somewhat unbearable. But, when you finally get home everything falls into place right? Nope, that’s not always the case. Sometimes you arrive home and your child wants nothing to do with you. That’s when you jokingly shout, “Go to your mother!” or “Go to your father!” This got me thinking: I'm going to wait for the next time my wife brings our daughter with her on a long day of shopping. When they arrive home I’m going to ignore my daughter and maybe throw a fit. No, two fits. After she has endured a little slice of karma, I’ll take her aside like one of those really dramatic scenes from Full House, and explain to her that, “You’ve just been karmaed! In your face!” Sure, it might be a little uncalled for, a little spiteful even. But, sometimes you can’t wait for real karma to come straggling along. Sometimes you have to conjure up some self-made karma (imitation karma if you will) roll it up, flatten it out, throw it in the oven, let it cool down,  slice it up and serve it.

The straw that helped get the camel addicted to narcotics and then maybe broke his back.
My daughter drinks from a sippy cup with a straw. The other day I caught her sticking the straw in her nostrils. Initially I laughed and told her to knock it the hell off. Then I started thinking: Addiction is a serious matter. I really don’t want her getting used to sticking straws up her nose. With that said, I think now is the perfect time to switch her from a sippy cup to a big girl cup.