First Dates Are Awkward

Happy February 1st.  Since this is the month that contains Valentines Day, I’ve decided to dedicate each week of this month to someone/something I love.  The 1st – 7th of this month are dedicated to my beautiful daughter: DLG.

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Bunny had a function to go to the other night and she asked me what DLG and I were going to do during her absence.

“Hmmm,” I said almost instantaneously blushing, “I was, uh… kinda thinkin’ about asking DLG out on a date?”

DLG and I have hung out by running errands together or going to the park or even going to kiddie themed indoor amusement areas… but never out on the town at night exclusively just with each other!  I was frightened at what people might say when seeing a rather large, out-of-shape, tattooed (but still extremely good-looking) man with a much MUCH younger girl.

“Oh honey,” my wife cooed as her brow furrowed and her eyebrows lifted, “That sounds soooooo sweet!  What are you going to do?”

“I was thinkin’ maybe we’d go to eat and then see a movie or something.”

My wife nodded approvingly and encouraged me to just ask her already!!  So, gathering my wits about me, I nervously approached DLG as she sat amongst assorted plastic fruits and vegetables.

“Uh… excuse me DLG,” I said with my lip nervously quivering, “Do you have a minute?  I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah daddy. Okay.  I just don’t care!” She said.

I kicked aside a plastic cabbage and flicked away a tiny pile of plastic eggs and sat down next to her, “If you’re not too busy tomorrow reading books or pretending you’re an airplane I was wondering if you’d like to… maybe… uh, go to dinner and maybe a movie with me?”

When I get nervous my butt tends to sweat a lot.  If you’d walked in on us at that moment you’d have noticed it appeared as though I’d sat on a sponge.

I eagerly awaited DLG’s response, “Yeah.  That would be okay daddy.” She finally said.

I jumped up, fist-pumped and then said to her, “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO REGRET THIS!  WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AN AWESOME TIME!  So… around six o’clock tomorrow then?”

I didn’t even wait for her to answer that question.  I wanted to get out of there before she changed her mind.

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The following evening, I wore my best jeans and made sure my Iron Man t-shirt had been ironed perfectly to where there were no wrinkles.  I sprayed my tennis shoes to keep the funk away and kept my Texas Rangers hat firmly wedged on my head to keep my white-man afro from scaring away the patrons of the restaurant we were going to attend.  I wanted to look the best for my date with DLG.

DLG emerged from her room wearing the newest ensemble of clothing her mother had just purchased for her (I should have snapped a picture dammit).  Her theme was leopard.  The pattern adorned her shoes, jacket and the bow in her hair.  She smiled her best smile.

“Are you ready for our date?” I said with as much confidence I could muster.

“Let’s do our date daddy.” She said. 

I breathed a sigh of relief.  She wasn’t going to cancel on me.

We laughed over a gourmet dinner of pizza, french fries and hamburgers.  We even ordered a fabulous brownie dessert complete with ice cream.  She accidentally slapped me on the face with a spoon covered in ice cream.  We both laughed hysterically.

“She likes me.” I thought.

After dinner we saw the movie “Yogi Bear”.  Not the best choice in a first date movie but we cuddled next to each other and whispered about what was going on the whole movie.

There wasn’t much to whisper about… it was a pretty horrible movie…

As we exited the movie theater parking lot and as our date was nearing its end, I asked her with more confidence… if she had a good time on our first date.

She said, “Yeah daddy… when are we going on our date?”

“Uh… we just did honey.” I replied realizing that perhaps she still was too young to understand the concept of “a date”.

Before we neared the house, she faintly whispered something below the roar of the song”Lolli Lolli” sung by the harmonic group Three 6 Mafia.

“What was that honey?” I said while simultaneously turning down the music.

“I love you daddy.”

It was at that moment that I knew I had to ask her the one question I’d been wanting to ask all night.  With a surge of excitement I asked, “DLG, can I be your Daddy… forever?”

She smiled and said, “Yeah.  That would be fine.”

I then fist pumped the air, jumped from my car seat and yelled, “YES!  YOU ARE NOT GOING TO REGRET THIS!  WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AN AWESOME TIME!!!”

SHE SAID YES!!!

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Do you take your kid on “dates”?  If you don’t… then you should.  They’re pretty special.