Mrs. Pal registered the kiddo for kindergarten this week. What a kick in the gut. The first time she went to a pre-school class without us, I cried, so what’s going to happen when she gets on the bus?
The other day we were watching TV, and she said, “You know that Jonas brother with the straight hair? I love him! He’s. So. HANDSOME!”
Ugh.
Of course, she still insists that I cuddle her at night. What do you do with this kind of love? The other day I told her, “I’m so happy we’re having so much fun this weekend. What about you?”
“Me too, Daddy, cuz we never see each other during the week, right?”
Ugh.
My wife feels guilty when she is too busy to spend a lot of time with the kid during the day. I feel guilty when I don’t see her for a couple of days, but I also feel guilty if I skip work to hang out. The economy sucks, right? You can’t just blow off work.
But I know soon enough she won’t really notice if I leave early or come home late. She’ll have her own thing going on, whether it’s singing a song I didn’t teach her, or swooning over some other Jonas brother, or worse, a real boy.
This is the first time I’ve been a dad, so I don’t know all the right answers. I only know that when I’m not with her, it hurts. But I know that some day she will walk away, smiling.