Friday is date night!
For the past six, maybe seven years, Fridays on my calendar
have been booked. They are reserved for dessert night with my baby girl, and I
would not trade anything for those dates.
“A” shares my sweet tooth, so centering our date on dessert
was a no brainer. We alternate the menu, not on any kind of routine basis, but
dependent on our taste buds. Sometimes it’s cupcakes and cookies. On other days
it’s frozen yogurt or ice cream. Lately, we’ve enjoyed a lot of milkshakes and
coffee, but it’s not about the food. It’s our time together.
After we eat the last crumb or slurp the last of the shake, my
girl will ask if we can go for a walk or drive around for a while. That is our time
to talk. If the weather is agreeable, we’ll walk downtown, looking in windows,
making introductions to people one or the other of us doesn’t know, slowly
inching our way toward the harder topics, like boys and crushes or mean girls
and college.
Those conversations happen in the car, too, but the ritual changes
behind the steering wheel. In the car, we sing, loudly, usually to a hit from
the 70s or 80s. Journey, Fleetwood Mac and the soundtracks from “Dirty Dancing”
or “Grease” are her favorites, but we always seem to come back to the song that
started it all: “Baby Girl.”
Black top, blue sky,
Big town full of little white lies,
Everybody’s your friend, you can never be sure.
They’ll promise fancy cars and diamond rings,
All sorts of shiny things.
Girl, you’ll remember what your knees are for…
Remember me in ribbons and curls.
I still love you more than anything in the world.
Love your baby girl.
Those last lines get me every time. I choke up, and I’m not
ashamed of it.
I love spending Friday evenings with my baby girl. I love
having that cupcake, ice cream or cup of coffee with her and watching her crinkle
her nose when she laughs. I love that she’s comfortable telling me about stupid
boys and shallow girls.
The way I figure it, time is a gift. We’re always trading
it, but we can never buy it back. And, these moments are priceless. She’s a
high school senior, going to her last homecoming dance. She’s got a job. She’s
saving her money and planning for college. With the boy living in Nashville
most of the year, I’m painfully aware of just how precious these moments are.
So, I will eat dessert, even if I don’t need it. I will listen as long as she
will talk. And, I will sing at the top of my lungs to whatever song she
chooses.
Don’t stop believing.
Hold on to the feeling.
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