Today is my dad’s birthday and I wanted to do something — something other than cry on and off all day and raise my 2 ounce shot glass of whiskey to him later on tonight when I’m all done driving kids around.  But I couldn’t think of anything good.  

The kids are out of school this week.  Sophie came home early from selling Girl Scout cookies on Saturday with a headache and a fever that went up over 103 for a couple of days.  She was so sweet when she was sick, wanting me to be near her and hold her hand.  Scuba went out and got her ginger ale and popsicles and movies.  Last night she was feeling better, so she made dinner and then wanted me to sit and on the couch to cuddle and watch a movie with her, something we haven’t done in such a long time.  She put on Brave which I hadn’t seen, and I curled up on the couch with her, and Scuba, too, but I was too tired to watch the whole thing.  I promised I’d finish it with her today, maybe at lunchtime, but lunch came and went and there wasn’t any chance for me to break away from work long enough.   

It rained today, hard.  Willow started feeling sick, too, with a headache and a little bit of a fever.  The girls set up a tea party for their stuffed animals.  They watched a movie.  They played Mario Cart.  They put photos on Instagram.  They talked about putting on rain boots and stomping around outside, but decided it was too cold.  They ate cookies.  Finally Sophie came into my room around 3 and started in on me for not watching the end of the movie with her.  She told me how much I’d like it, and said that I’d promised.  And, she was right.  Honestly, normally I would have told her it would have to wait.  That maybe we could finish watching it after dinner.  But I spent all day wishing I could spend time with my dad, so how could I say no when she just wanted to spend some time with me?  I brought my computer out to the living room, set it up so I could see if any new email came in, and spent 45 minutes with my girls in the middle of the day.  They both kept leaning on me and patting me.  It made me feel a lot better, too.     

So, Dad, Happy Birthday.  I didn’t do anything for you, but I did sit and hug on my kiddos.  Brave was pretty good.  You’d have loved watching it with the girls and me.  Some popcorn.  Beer for us, ginger ale for them.  I wish you were here with us.  You should be.