So I set the dining nook with two plates for me and Cayde, with two accompanying napkins.
Me:”Which side do you want?” And Cayde chooses. We sit, then he throws his napkin to my side of the table.
Cayden: “I changed my mind.” So we switch, and then he tosses his napkin again towards my side.
C: “Changed my mind again.”
It’s musical chairs for a while, until I realize his intention, and when he finally says, “Daddy, I want to sit next to you.” And he hugs me big before tucking into his pasta and broccoli–both of which he begged for after having been subjected to the past few ‘Let’s Try Something New’ nights, wherein he’s tried–honestly–to navigate foods currently un-navigable in his present gastrosphere. (What’re chickpeas, Daddy? What’s labne? What’s lentils?)
C: ‘This is fun.’
Me:’I hardly find broccoli fun.’
But Cayde is talking about driving home, and not dinner, when we listened to some ridiculous dance music that he requested and which Daddy embarrassingly admits he kinduv likes; about taking the long way home to hit that 45 degree hill where we pause for him to count down: ‘5-4-3-2-1-Blast off!’ (I actually get to third gear before we bottom out and yell ‘wheee!’); about choosing some bottled tomato sauce from the corner market for dinner to dress the pasta he’s been so pining for; about stupid-dancing (the only dancing we are capable of) to Daddy’s LCD Soundsystem, only requiring the one-two rock-step and theatrical arm gestures; about abandoning dinner for an hour to play tag in a bungalow so small that tag becomes a laughing carousel whirl through room after same room; about hide-and-seek with walkie-talkies wherein we give clues to one another as to our secret locations, usually the curtained bathtub or Cayden’s bedsheet fortress which I’ve clothes-pinned together replete with Boba Fett Halloween mask to make Boba Fortress. About playing ‘Hi-Ho Cherry-O’ in the fort that Cayden’s now asleep inside, cramped in between building blocks, a Millenium Falcon, and our favorite Mo Willems book.
Cayde: ‘Daddy, make the lamp so I don’t get scared.’
Me: ‘Ok, Cayde. I will.’
Daddy, medium-well. 