Dancing with Daddy

Last year when Bugster and Bubster got married, there wasn't really a reception. They got married at the courthouse just after 5, when the judge was available. We then went to a neat little pizza joint, where we surprised them with the wedding cake I made, and we hung out with them for a couple of hours that evening. But there wasn't a reception in a formal sense. 


This year, things will be more formal. They will have a ceremony, followed by a reception. There will be eating and dancing and toasting and hopefully, some pinata demolishing.


And with my nephew's wedding just days away, I started thinking of the traditions of a reception. The first dance for the bride and groom. The father/daughter dance. The mother/son dance. The money dance, where as many people as can pin money to the bride and groom to dance with them for a moment before the next person steps in, all in attempt to give the happy couple a little extra cash with which to start their lives. And of course, we mustn't forget The Hokey Pokey. 


They are going to have a blast!


As my mind wandered down this train of thought, it wandered to my own wedding reception 25 years ago, when Daddy asked me, if he "could have this dance."


I remember being a bit embarrassed when I admitted that I didn't know how to officially dance. I mean, I danced with Hubster, but not a Waltz or a Two Step. I could only dance Clingon. As in I would Clingon to Hubster, and he would Clingon to me. Which, incidentally, is the only dance either of us knows to this day. 


But when I think of that dance with Daddy, I can feel the butteflies in my stomach all over again, my eyes begin to well with tears, and the smile cannot be wiped from my face. I feel his hand on my waist and the rough, calloused hands of a man who worked for a living under my fingertips.


I had the giggles. I was nervous, even though I knew Daddy wouldn't judge my lack of dancing ability. But I wanted to please him. I wanted to do it right. I wanted to make him proud.


He sensed my nervousness, likely, because I was stiff as a board. He told me to relax.


"There's nothing to it."


"Just follow my lead."


"Those were my toes."


School girl giggles. 


"I'm glad you're happy. Hubster seems like a fine young man."


"Thanks, Daddy. I am happy. And he is an amazing man."


"I said I'd lead!"


Hysterical giggles.


"You're doing fine."


"But just follow me. I'll lead."


The giggles turned to guffaws, as we joked and teased one another, and I stepped on Daddy's toes repeatedly, as I tried to lead, without knowing the first thing about dancing. It was such an intimate moment with my daddy, and it's one I will cherish for the rest of my life. 


I want that for Bugster. I'm trying to talk Hubster into learning a Two Step or a Waltz, so he can have that experience with Bugster, too, but even a Clingon will do.


Because they both need to experience that intimacey and closeness and the giggles that only a father/daughter dance can bring about. 
So that years from now, when Bugster is driving 1000 miles across country to go to a cousin's wedding, she can tear up at the wonderful and fond memories of that special dance with her daddy. 


So she can still feel the butterflies of excitement, fun and nervousness of dancing with her daddy.


So she can feel the calloused hand of a man who works for a living beneath her fingertips.


Because everyone needs to have something so wonderful that nothing can wipe the smile from their face at the mere memory.


This post was written in the car on the way to our nephew's wedding a couple of weeks ago. It is dedicated to the best dad in the entire world, who we lost too soon 4 years ago this week, because it's always too soon to lose someone as beloved as he was and is. I miss you, Daddy, but I'm so very thankful God gave you to us kids as our very own Daddy! I love you from the bottom of my heart, and I can't wait to see you again someday. 

Debbie Downer strikes again.

The last couple of weeks appear to be catching up with me.


I put off taking care of some very important paperwork that I should have done months ago, in order to dehoard as much of the house as possible as quickly as possible. And partially just because it slipped my mind. I got a reminder about the paperwork being due a week or so before we left for my nephew's wedding, but I thought I'd have time to get it done right after we got home.



I was wrong.


Got news in the mail today that I didn't have the extra time to get it done as I was hoping I had. Unfortunately, it's going to affect our lives quite negatively until I can get all the receipts together and get the paperwork turned in. It's going to be like digging for buried treasure to find everything I need, and it's probably going to take just as long. 


The whole situation has raised the stress level around here tenfold. I don't like stress. It makes me cranky. It makes me short with The Hubster. It makes me feel weak and like a great big crybaby when things get overwhelming, and I blubber over the slightest thing. 


To top things off and add to the stress, I can feel I'm getting sick. My throat is sore. My lungs are tight. Although I think the lung situation is my asthma deciding to flare up with our return to the higher altitude and exposure to different irritants that exacerbated it while we were gone, I think the throat thing is a whole different story. 


Several weeks before Mom left to go home, I had a sore throat that reared up a few weeks after I'd had a cold. It got steadily worse, and I had a rather large white spot on the back of my throat, so I went in for a strep test. It came back negative. I ended up having to go in for several tests, and the antibiotics took forever to do their thing. The final diagnosis was that I had an abscess of the soft tissue in my throat. Apparently part of my tonsil has grown back, and it had become infected. 


Four weeks of antibiotics infected. 


I'm hoping that gargling warm salt water and getting some extra sleep will keep me off the antibiotics. 


I'm feeling too much like Debbie Downer, and I don't like to keep her company. 


It always turns into a contest. 

And on that note...good night!

It feels like we've been gone from home for forever. It's only been about 10 days, but it's amazing how much we packed in to that short amount of time. We've thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but we've had some interesting hotel adventures along the way.


The longer we're gone, the harder it seems to get going in the mornings to get an early start on the road. It seems to verge on the impossible, even. So we decided to stop last night in Lincoln, NE at the same hotel we stayed at on the way up to Rochester. We were hoping the several hundred miles we had yet to drive today would go more quickly, if we were well rested, and the kids had gotten some sleep.


We didn't want them to go straight to sleep, because we wanted them to feel like they enjoyed their short visit at this now familiar hotel. So we took them to the pool. The water was a bit on the cold side, so they didn't stay in the pool long. We sat in the hot tub for about 10 minutes and went back to the room, got the girls showered, and into bed. 


When the girls were little, we'd often give them a nice warm bath to help them  sleep, but it didn't seem to do much good last night. The second Hopper's head hit the pillow, she started having a meltdown. It came out of nowhere, like the one had the night before, with the volume escalating with every cry. There were several times we thought she'd finally succumbed to the sandman only to hear a panicky, "MOM!" or "DADDY!" from the other bed, startling all who had dare drift off to sleep. It was well after midnight when she finally drifted into a relaxing sleep.


We were so tired that we decided not to set an alarm and just wake up on our own. Where we'll be home tonight, and we'll all get to sleep in our own beds, we figured it didn't matter, if it took longer to get home. We'll get home tonight regardless, and we figured a little extra sleep might make traveling today easier. 


Ha.


Precisely at 9:30a.m., the strobe light in the room that is used to alert those who are hard of hearing of an emergency started flashing. Let me just say that it was BRIGHT! We didn't exactly panic, because there was no audible alarm sounding, and it shut off within about 30 seconds. We figured we could wake up a little more slowly, so we crawled back into bed to awake at a more leisurly pace. 


Ha.


Our heads no sooner hit the pillows than the strobe started flashing again. Hubster tried to call the front desk to see what the problem was, but the phone didn't work. He put on his jeans and walked down to the front desk. Someone was working on fire alarm system for the hotel. Over the course of the hour and a half or so it took us to get packed up, showered and leave, the strobe light started flashing no less than 20 times. The last time, it stayed on continuously for 45 minutes. 


That peaceful and restful start to our day didn't really get off the ground so well. The strobing made me sick to my stomach and got on all our nerves. Hubster talked to the manager of the hotel and got a partial refund on the room. We felt it was very fair of them. We understood that the inspection wasn't their fault, but they could have also alerted those who were staying in the rooms that were equipped with the strobing lights to what was going on.


When Hubster was finished up, we took off on our long trek home. There was no rain in sight, but to say there wasn't a cloud in the sky would be a lie. There was heavy cloud cover, haze or smoke in the air all 450 miles home, and the wind was something else. It buffeted the car about the highway for a couple hundred miles, but things finally settled down, and we didn't have to stop for Dramamine. Still. It made for a long start to a long day.


We did finally make it home at 8pm our time, 9pm Central time, where we'd spent the last 10 days. Needless to say, it was a long day.


Everyone is exhausted but oh so glad to be home. Best of all? 


We get to sleep in our own beds!