Dad Entry #27

I’m not sure how I feel about Meggie’s haircut. I think at the heart of my reflection is a simple question: can you add to, or subtract from… perfection. No. No you can’t. You can’t improve Meggie. By trimming her hair?!?! Please. Some might argue – and fairly well - that you can detract from perfection. But you can’t. Not this kind. Maybe ‘infinity’ is the right word then and mathematically we can ‘prove’ or say with certainty. But what does math have to do with this; we’re talking about – in this case - a bad haircut. Of course there’s no impact. No more than a drop of rain can damage the ocean. What about misbehaving? That’s just a big wave here and there, the kind surfers love. What about wrecking my car when she’s sixteen? Um, maybe that’s a little storm, a tiny hurricane (but think how HUGE the ocean is). What about picking the wrong boyfriend? I think maybe that’s a tsunami and devastating tidal wave and let’s change the subject.

Michael burned himself on the edge of a baking sheet. We keep him away from hot pans and the hot oven but he came in fast, threw up an arm, and got a nice burn on his arm. He won’t do it again. It blistered into a white line across his wrist. He was bandaged in a ‘mummy’ gauze wrap. This part he was pretty excited about. Maybe he won’t be so careful after all.

Megan stopped doing something I really enjoyed. I don’t think she fully grasped that ‘reading’ meant there were words on the pages that told a story which we relayed to her, straight from the book, the same every time. Very rarely do I skip or improvise (because Michael always busted me when I did that!). With Megan, I would start a book and she would say, “Talk about dat,” as she pointed to one of the pages or pictures. “Talk about dat, Dad.” Sweet thing. I have read a book called “Double Pink” to her about a thousand times now. I guess she knows the words are always the same and they come from the letters on the pages now. In fact, she knows those letters. I love it when she belts out her ‘A-B-C’s’ which she usually follows with a super rendition of ‘Bilo Baby Buntin’.