A Dance with Jessamyn

As you may have caught from several previous postings on the blog, this past weekend saw my first “daddy and daughter” dance with my eldest, Jessamyn. The event was hosted by her school and was something that both my wife and spent considerable time planning and anticipating. Jenny had purchased a wonderful Spring dress for the occasion that looked just beautiful on Jess.
I will attempt to cover the entire event in great detail by breaking it up into several sub-titled sections to give a perspective of each specific group of events.

The Day

It was a typical Saturday in the Pike household complete with chaos, running late on the mornings routines, and with kids distracted by all the minute details of their lives.

Joey and Jessamyn had dance classes earlier that morning (routine attendance is something their dance teachers keep beating into us since they can’t miss a single Saturday as their recitals are coming up in several months, so, regardless of whatever strife is happening in our lives, we make diligent efforts to comply).

Previously scheduled Saturday morning hair cut appointments had been cancelled (yet again) for an unknown reason, but Jenny had insisted that Jess would at least have some sort of appointment to style her hair prior to the event, and a rescheduled time was set for shortly after lunch.

We came to home to regroup before the hair appoint and to give the kids some rest. While at home the mother of a friend of Jessamyn’s named Emma called to inquire if the girls would be available to get together to play. After informing her that Jess had a hair appointment, Jenny suggested that maybe Emma would like to come with Jess to the stylist and maybe do lunch out together. What a great idea! The three ladies (Jess, Emma, and Jenny) all headed off to prepare Jess’s hair for the night ahead.

Jessamyn's hair before the appointment

Jessamyn's hair after the appointment (note the attitude! :)

After arriving back home from her hair appointment, I was astounded at the visage of a young woman that now appeared in front of me. Jess’s hair was amazing. She looked much more mature woman than the three year old I had to keep reminding myself that she actually was, save for the tilted head and sucker in her mouth.

Jenny and I spent the rest of the afternoon taking “watch shifts” to keep a close eye on Jessamyn in order to prevent any child based interference with her hair. (Fortunately, she left it alone)

At 4:00pm, we had our annual neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. By this time, Emma had gone home suffering from allergies (understandable given the five cat and two dog population of allergen generating quadrupeds that reside in our home), so Joey and Jess ran out to join their other sets of neighborhood friends: The Fords and the Dicks.

Some 180+ eggs had been hidden in plain sight in our now snow devoid backyards, and the kids spent the better part of a half hour hunting and searching for the afternoon’s treasure.






As 5 o’clock neared, Jenny hastened us back indoors to get Jessamyn ready for our “date.”

I put on my nicest suit coat complete with a tie that Jenny had found earlier in the week that was a perfect complement to Jessamyn’s dress.

We rushed downstairs and took the awkward “first date” photos in front of the fireplace. Apart from the vast height difference, I dare say we made a pretty cute couple.

Jessamyn enjoyed all of the pictures and played “cute” as she posed for each one. She even nipped me a little kiss just as we finished.

Jessamyn and I pose for our awkward "first date" picture

Jenny pins the corsage onto Jess's dress

Jessamyn tries to conceal her excitement about going to a dance with her daddy!

Jocie watches her sister as she gets ready to go to her dance and wonders "When will I get to go to a dance?"

Jessamyn shows us her Marylin Monroe pose.

The Dinner

As would be expected for a date with me, we were running late. I had planned for a ninety minute window of time for dinner, but as it was now almost 5:45, I had lost half of my window since the dance started at 6:30.

Not knowing what to expect from the event itself, I had crafted the image of a sort of formal ceremony that locked events into a rigid calendar at the dance. I fretted myself into a near-panic thinking my lethargy had ruined any potential for a fun night for the two of us as we would now have to arrive late if we wanted to eat dinner.

I should know better by now, as this was a common theme throughout my early adulthood as a teenager: fretting, arriving late, and losing sight over the “big picture” as I worried about the details that really didn’t mean a thing.

As I attempted to calm myself down, I kept reminding myself that this night was really all about Jessamyn and me, and really, nothing else should matter.

I refocused and regrouped my mental expectations and re-grounded myself into reality.

By this time, I had dropped my first several choices of dining establishments as the time remaining just wouldn’t allow for the two to three hours that a top-notch restaurant would require.

Another option came to mind that happened to be near the dance and also served a more dietary sensible meal selection as I hoped for something approaching a fruit salad for my little girlfriend.

The Oakwood Bistro was a perfect selection for our evening as it met all of these requirements while still being a perfect date night choice.

As we walked through the door, faces turned, conversations stopped mid-sentence, and others tapped distracted faces to turn and see the little petty coated beauty walking by them.

Jess soaked up the “oohs”, “Oh wow, isn’t she just so pretty”, and “oh, isn’t that cute” and shot back a quick little chin-down head-tilt faces based curtsy that only she can deliver, complete with a little giggle.

The hostess said the wait would only be about 10 to 15 minutes (but ended up being more like 30), and so we slid up to the bar and sat down for a quick nip to take the first bite out of the night for us: a kiddy cocktail.

I think this must have been her first such drink, but, given her response, I’m sure she’ll be making this a common drink for those many nights in the future when she’s out on the town with her “man”… (her daddy, of course).

After sitting down and ordering (Jessamyn opted for chicken fingers instead of a fruit plate and I took the healthy Asian sesame salad hoping the turnaround time for the salad would be shorter than the filet that my appetite really wanted), we delighted in sharing crayons as we “doodled” over Jessamyn’s placemat.

Sipping tea at the booth across the aisle from us was the smiling face of what could only be a grandmother that couldn’t take her eyes off Jessamyn. In a beautiful British accent, she told Jess how pretty she was and then informed me that her youngest granddaughter was now 17 and no longer liked wearing such colorful dresses like the one that Jess was wearing. Soaking up the complements, Jess again face curtseyed and blew her admirer a kiss before going back to coloring in a picture of what she claimed was her brother with a blue crayon.

7:00pm… I was a half-hour late, but still enjoying every moment as we walked out past new eyes that again stopped and provided a red carpet of compliments for my little lady as we walked out.

The Dance

As we arrived at Jess’s school, I was relieved to see a few other cars still finding parking spaces, and some father-daughter couples walking towards the gymnasium entrance. Relief! Like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. The images of hundreds of parents turning towards me as I walked in late, music stopping, and an embarrassing moment of feeling like a heel as a parent faded as we walked through the door and joined a long line to pay for our entrance.

By now, Jessamyn is giddy as she can hear the music blaring ahead of us down the hall and into the gym. In crafting my mental picture of the event, I had only forecasted that classmates from her pre-school class would be the only attendees at the dance, but in actuality, the event covered ALL grades (pre-school through eighth grade).

As we walked into the gym the first thing to come into view in the darkened room was an arch littered with balloons and streamers. It had felt like a black-and-white moment from a 1950’s “sweet sixteen” film as we walked in.

On the far wall, a DJ pumped out some song I’ve never heard while girls of various ages coagulated towards the middle is a pulsing web of laughs as they danced in a large group. On the outside of the dance floor stood the girls’ fathers acting liked cemented posts dotting the edge of a field as if they were a fence line. The glow of dozens of BlackBerry’s illuminated the faces of businessmen fighting the awkwardness that must have been commonplace for this bunch twenty years earlier, but seems to prevail even today.

Thinking myself to be different from this horde of antisocial testosterone emanating figures, my date and I brushed through the hobnob line and onto the floor to take part in the last few versus of the unknown ballad. As the song finishes, Jess locates several familiar friends’ faces and immediately departs my company to join them. A song from my youth starts playing, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” and the dance floor fills with all girls that now freakishly start dancing in unison synchronization as they perform the exact steps from a video that saw fame a dozen years before their births.

And in that instant, I realize that it has taken all of 35 seconds for me to go from a parenting proud father to an awkward detached solo male in yet another gym that paralleled an earlier instance of myself from 20 years earlier.

Where is my BlackBerry?

Not thinking I’d need it, I had opted to leave it at home. So, I ran out to the car to grab the next best thing… my camera. How better to hide my insecurities but behind the eyepiece of a massive camera and flash as I chase my daughter and her friends around the dance floor like some celebrity chasing paparazzi.

I snap off one photo before Jess decides that she’d rather be with me than her friends.

“I’m thirsty.”

Well, the cause for us to get back together again wasn’t as important to me as the fact that I had her back in my presence. I doped her up with a quick shot of ‘Hawaiian Fruit Punch’ before asking if she’d like some cookies.

As I finish the sentence that offers the cookies, the DJ says something about every girl grabbing their daddy and bringing them to the dance floor for a slow song.

Jess grabs my hand and says “Come on Daddy.”

We slow dance together for about half the song before both of us decide it might be easier if I just pick her up and hold her as we dance. She puts her head on my shoulder and I fight back tears as I’m quickly lost in the moment and again proud of both of us for being where we are at this moment in time.

After two hours of dancing, both slow and crazy fast, we’re both worn out and Jess turns to me and says “ok Daddy, let’s go home. I’m tired.”

As we walk away from the gym, she turns and gives my legs a huge hug as she says to me “I love you.”

This time I can’t win the war against the tears and walk with blurred vision all the way back to the car.

I’m proud. I’m happy. And I know we’ll be doing this one again.

I can’t wait for it.

jp