Without enough physical activity, I get antsy. Antsy is never a good thing. Antsy makes me choose stupid decisions. Antsy is how I ended up married.
After a few reps, Paige video-calls me. I love that this is how she wants to communicate with me. I’m a lot like my mother—Paige is my favorite human and I’m always excited to see her.
“Hey, Squid, how was your day?”
“Oh my gosh, Dad. I gained eight pounds this year. You havegotto stop calling me that. I’m so big now,” she says, throwingher arms in the air and sounding a bit like a snake from her missing tooth. The new one is halfway in and goofy-as-fuck looking, but I love it.
“No deal, kiddo. You’ll always be my Squid and, I fear, Papa is always going to call you Piglet.” It’s the nickname he gave her the first time they met because she was so tiny and pink.
“Well, then I’m never going to stop calling him Eeyore,” she says, accompanied by an exaggerated eye roll.
“If the shoe fits,” I say. “And it sure does in Papa’s case. How was the doctor?”
“It was fine. I got the paper thingy that says I can do gymnastics.”
“The paper thingy,” I repeat with a laugh. “Happy to hear that. You excited to start?”
“Yeah! So excited! I want to learn how to do a cartwheel on the balance beam!”
Fucking hell, that sounds awful.
“Will you do your old man a favor and start with cartwheels on the floor?”
“I guess,” she says, spinning around a couple of times before she abruptly stops. “You know what else, Dad?”
“What else?”
“Bryant, the new kid, said hi to me today at recess. He just ran up and said hi!” A huge smile grows on her face.
“Nope,” I say in protest. There is no reason my eight-year-old daughter needs to pay boys any kind of attention.
“Daaaaad,” she groans.
“Ugh, fine, Paige. But you know the rules.”
“Right. Rule number one is to know what I like about a person.”
“Yep, so what do you like about Ant?”
“BRYant,” she clarifies, and I nod for her to continue. “He’s nice. He never picks on anyone like some of the other boys do. And he smiles, like, all the time.”
“Those are great reasons.”
“Rule number two is to think about how a person makes me feel,” she says. She squints and scrunches her face while she thinks about it. “His smile makes me smile and that makes me feel happy. He’s silly and I get to be silly too. I like that because we always have to be so quiet in class.”
“He gives you a nice break from being studious.”
“What does that mean?”
“Paying attention to learning.”
“Oh, then yeah. He does that. It makes the day go by easier.”
“Well, I guess I have no complaints about that,” I tell her. “But what’s rule number three?”
“Always remember who I am and don’t try to be anything for anyone else.”
I don’t know if my parenting skills, or lack thereof, are any damn good. This routine could be way over the top, for all I know. But fuck me if I’m going to raise a kid, especially a daughter, who doesn’t know who she is. Or who lets a fuckboy pull the wool over her eyes, or some little snobby girl rope her into doing something stupid. And yeah, I get that they’re a bunch of elementary school kids, but it’s never too early to learn that sometimes people just suck.
