While Jon was away for the weekend at a music festival in Tennessee with his two best friends, the rest of us enjoyed a quiet Father’s Day here without him and in his honor went out to breakfast on Sunday morning where, for the entire thirty minutes that we waited to be seated, and then the ten that we waited for the actual food, Leta begged for a plate of potatoes. I don’t think I need to point out how strange it is for Leta to be begging for food, period, let alone a potato, and so I dared to suggest that maybe what she really meant was a plate of French fries, and that’s when she almost threw a fork at my head, because apparently those two things are entirely different, and it needed to be pointed out. Violently.
So just in case, because that’s the kind of parent I am, the just-in-case kind, the one who leaves for preschool thirty minutes earlier than I have to because what would I do if I got a flat tire or, god forbid, had to turn around and go back for something I forgot? I’d be late and then I’d never be able to yell at Jon when he drops Leta off Late, and I don’t want to live a life in which I don’t have that option.
So I ordered myself a plate of French fries, just in case, and when the waitress brought both items, the very different French fries for me, and the very different potatoes for her, she snidely looked at both items and then up at me like, SEE? DIFFERENT. And then she dove head first into her potatoes, coming up only occasionally for breath. I saw it as some weird little gift to give her father, because potatoes are his favorite food, and there she was, his miniaturized clone, eating the breakfast he would have eaten had he been with us. Only thing that could have made it more authentic was if she had suddenly hopped out of her chair, run over to the thermostat and set it to BOIL YOUR EYEBALLS.
My father’s day present to Jon was his trip, plus all the gear he bought to take on the trip (you should ask him about the blow-up chair, go ahead, ask him, and then ask him to list at least one other time he is going to use that blow-up chair and he will not be able to tell you, although he will make something up, and you shouldn’t believe him because he’s lying), and also the realization afterward that although I know I could do this alone, I certainly don’t want to do this alone. More specifically, I don’t want to do this without him.
Not that we don’t have our fair share of, oh, disagreements, so many, in fact, that we often have to reassure GEORGE! that Mommy and Daddy still love each other, despite the occasional door slam and the more-than-occasional chorus of YOU DID WHAT? He’s still my best friend, and I have more fun with him than with anyone else and am so glad that at the end of the day I can turn to him to say I love you, but can you please stop grabbing my boob, I’m trying to brush my teeth.