Daddy Daughter Day

La Serpiente woke me up fairly early and I fed both girls breakfast, before taking my eldest on the back of my bike and riding down to reconnoitre downtown Seattle. In egocentric fashion I’d assumed every shop had shut down since I’ve not visited in six months, but surprisingly all the cafes near my office are still open. Even if there’s few customers around. I had a coffee, fed La Serpiente a cookie and then we rode back home, stopping off at the troll for a photo and at the climbing wall, where there were thirty feet of monkey bars to challenge yourself with (La Serpiente did more than I could manage).
We rode home, I fed her lunch and then we walked to the toyshop (15 blocks north of us). Then we walked to the hardware store (back 15 blocks and 9 blocks over) to buy an attachment for the garden hose.

I hope this doesn’t sound like Daddy Daughter Day was an opportunity for my eldest to accompany me on errands. I bought her a Lego car to make, and an ice cream, and she made me buy books at the bookshop on the way, and I almost forgot about the hose, which was why we hadn’t gone straight home after the toyshop.

When we did get back, we were both tired, so she read her book, and then we started on the car. Last time we did this I ended up doing three quarters of the assembly, so I kept making sure La Serpiente did the lion’s share this time. She even told me a few times that she wanted me to take a turn.

One of her friends rang on the doorbell to ask her to come to the park to play. Worn out by her walk, La Serpiente actually declined, and we finished the car and then watched a bit of TV while waiting for Destroyer to return from a hike.

With Destroyer not getting back until 8, I put La Serpiente down, and sweetly she complained that she couldn’t go to sleep without her little sister. Quite the change from the two of them squabbling at bedtime about who brushes their teeth first.

Now I’m exhausted too, but we had lots of fun together today. Precious little yelling too, which was nice, and I got to talk to my eldest about conceptions of fairness, the welfare state and the 19th century poorhouse, so that was a great day all round.