OUR LITTLE DANCE

Dear Spike:

Most mornings find you and I engaged in a bit of a dance. I shovel some food down your throat while deleting e-mails from people who want to sell me Viagra or help me secure a fortune in African gold. You start rummaging through your toy box as I make a few phone calls. I take you to the potty and, while we're downstairs, I grab a cup of coffee for me and a bottle of milk for you. Then back to the e-mails — this time the ones I actually have to read — with you on my knee. Then I work on my newspaper blog while you munch on some cereal. Back to the potty. Maybe a quick moment for a book. OK, maybe two. Back upstairs for (hopefully) a nap (alas for you, not me) while I confirm my appointments for the afternoon. More with the potty, more with the phone calls (two days ago I was quite litterally holding over the pot while speaking to a United States congressman.) And so on.

Sometimes I feel bad that you have to share your father's attention with soldiers and thinktankers and politicians. And I dream about days like today, when we spent the first two hours of the morning playing together on your bedroom floor, then got dressed for an excursion to the city library. There, we read books and stomped around in the the nooks and crannies of the children's section, then rode the glass elevator from the first floor to the fifth and back down again.

And back up again.

And back down again.

After we got tired of that, we went to the grocery store to pick up some baby food and yogurt. And on the way home you fell asleep, so I parked the car at the park and watched the geese splash down on the lake as you slept.

I didn't miss the daily grind, not one bit. But I won't be sorry when Monday rolls around and we're at it once again, me at my laptop and you at your toybox. Most folks aren't blessed with the opportunity to have every day be bring-your-daughter-to-work day. And so while I'm always relieved to see your mother walk through the front door in the afternoon, I always miss our little dance.

Love,
dad