Wii. DS. Cellphone. Laptop. iCarly. Friends. Homework. Every year my 10-year-old princess has more things to occupy her free time. More things to occupy free time means less time with Dad. Sure, I'm always close....helping with Math, maybe playing (losing) Wii, sitting at yet another swim practice....but not as much snuggle time on the couch. Or using her as a quickly growing Teddy Bear after she wakes up on Saturday. That quiet, close alone time has been replaced by "Daddy, I'm going downstairs" when she wakes up on weekends. Even if I'm already up it's getting harder to coax her over to help warm me up on the couch a while before we eat breakfast. There's certainly less hand holding in the mall. This list goes on. Face it, she's getting older. 10 year olds today are probably more like 13 year olds when I was young.
Tonight, we got all spiffy and headed off to church - a full hour and twenty minutes before the service started. Yup, you read that right. We have more than 3,000 families and 13,000 people. They had two 4:00 pm services, two 7:00 pm services and a midnight mass. We have been going early ever since we had to sit in the gym for the "overflow" service a few years ago. Yuck. My back was not made for a folding chair for any length of time. That's not important to the story. What's important is that about 20 minutes into the service, I felt a little hand and arm wiggle it's way between my arm and body and hooked us together. Then, she rested her head on my shoulder. It didn't last long enough for me (Catholic church -up/down/kneel), but it was nice while it did. Right there with all her classmates, friends, volleyball and swim teammates as well as some teachers.....my little tweener in her non-kiddy Christmas dress wasn't too cool to show her Daddy some Love.
Pretty dopey, I know, but true nonetheless. Merry Christmas.
1 comment:
Very cool. Merry Christmas to all you Stillas!
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