COLUMN: Daddy-daughter Jazz night
When you are married, work full time, attend graduate school and have a 3-year-old daughter, the tendency to feel like a neglectful dipwad father is rather high.
Most nights – well after my daughter has gone to bed – my only solace is to sneak inside her bedroom, plant a kiss on her little cheek, and whisper, “Goodnight, Emma, I love you.”
That may seem overly sappy and theatrical, but it’s true. A day does not pass without Emma melting my heart and making me smile. On the other hand, my daughter is reaching a stage where she wants me to play Barbie, dress-up, and watch dreadful movies such as Annie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Sound of Music.
This stage has only reinvigorated my hatred for musicals. I’d rather watch leprechauns mating or be anally probed by aliens.
Even so, it’s extremely likely she and I will not get through any 24-hour period without one of us barking at the other. Yes, despite the warm fuzzies children bring to the table, they sometimes expose their deeper, Damien-esque tendencies. Here’s a sample conversation.
“Emma, put your Barbie dolls away, please.”
Silence.
“Emma …”
Silence.
“EMMA!”
“What?”
“What did I just say?”
“Dad, little girls don’t like it when people yell.”
“Well, dads don’t like it when little girls don’t listen.”
“Dad, stop freaking out.”
This is when I go into seclusion in my office – or Fortress of Solitude, as I like to call it – and do what comes naturally to 99.5 percent of all men. I pout. It seems to work, because my wife, who has witnessed six years of pouting, will enter with my daughter and she and I will hug and say sorry. It’s like clockwork.
Two weeks ago I decided my daughter and I needed some extra bonding time, so the two of us went to see the Jazz play Sacramento. I worship the Jazz, and Emma tolerates them.
For instance, when I asked Emma if she liked the Jazz, she said rather emphatically, “Dad, I hate the Jazz. They make me tired.”
However, despite her “hatred,” she loves Karl Malone. She wore his jersey to the game. I wore, in her words, “Scockton’s jersey.” She’s really into numbers lately, so about every five minutes she told me she had a “three and a two” and I had a “one and a two.”
I was privy to her brutal honesty that night. After trying on some shorts, I said, “Emma, do these shorts look good?” She was making faces in the dressing room mirror and looked back and grimaced. “Dad,” she said, “I think those shorts look dumb.” She was right, too. I looked like I was trying to impersonate Eminem.
Along with honesty, I discovered little girls have the largest stomachs of any mammal on the face of the Earth. She ate chicken nuggets, fries, a cupcake, popcorn and three Krispy Kreme doughnuts. She also guzzled two Sprites and a root beer. I felt I was getting fatter just by watching.
Last, I realized, as I do so often, she is full of love. The game was a rout, the Jazz were getting spanked and she could have thrown a temper tantrum, demanding we leave the contest. Instead, with about two minutes until halftime, she put her arm around mine and said, “Dad, I love you. Can we go home?”
We should be more like kids in our treatment of the human race, because, quite frankly, kids don’t see color, religion or sexuality. They just love. It amazes me, and I wonder how this planet would change if we all followed the instincts of a child. We all were 3 at one time, so maybe it’s just a matter of remembering.