on her special day - guest blogger

So when the 4-year old has one day in the semester where her parent gets to hang out in the class, I am game. We work on a set list, tune the baby Taylor, grab the ingredients for bagel faces and head out ready to party like it's 1999, or it's preschool equivalent.

 

I was immediately welcomed into the class. Contrary to forming a "4-year-olds only" club, they brought me into the fold like I was one of their own, so they obviously had a keen awareness of my maturity level. One little homeboy walks up, asks me if I like monsters, and sits on my lap. From that moment on, we were bonded for life, and I am talking tight like fox and the hound style. We built sand castles and helped each other with bagel faces. He quizzed me on knowledge of insects that eat poop (turns out there's only one). We are bro's for life.

 

My favorite part of the day was the end, where Charlotte got to show off her guitar skills. The show included "If You're Happy and You Know It," "Old Macdonald Had a Farm," and a White Stripes-inspired rendition of "Wheels on the Bus."

 

 

 

If you don't care for sentiment, stop reading now. This day was a microcosm of all that is good about parenting. Any father of a four-year old has an appreciation for this age.  They are interested in others, they are developing complex character traits like trust and a sense of fairness and they have a genuine curiosity about the world around them.  They're more than kids - they're becoming people.  And while a heightened sense of interest is present in a general sense, it is also present in a personal sense. Specifically, they care about you - and by "you," I mean "Dad." For the girls, this means interest in your opinion and, more importantly, your company.
 

"Dad, dance with me."

"Dad, let's do something fun together."

"Dad, what do think about...?"

"Dad, do you think I look pretty?" 

 

 

Such questions are a welcome reminder of why you had kids in the first place. The greatness of this interest takes on an added gravity when it is contrasted against what looms ahead. Enjoy it while you can, fathers: the apocalypse (read: teenage years) is on the horizon.
 

Thanks for indulging this post which falls well beneath the bar of excellence raised by my counterpart - I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.