I let Milly sleep in the bed with me last night. She asks it pretty often, but when she moves a lot and I did get an elbow to the neck a few times during the wee hours. She also inevitably kicks the covers off, which leaves me a bit cold.
She always promises to try not to move around a lot, but of course she can’t help it. I just don’t sleep very well when I let her sleep in my bed.
But then she’ll sometimes curl up against my chest, and when she wakes up… oh when she wakes up. She always has this look of dawning revelation that I’m there with her and this wide slow smile spreads across her face and she throws her arms around my neck. And this morning she added a “Happy Father’s Day” to the mix.
Milly, Tristen and I went to Cracker Barrel (my pick) for breakfast. It was only about a thirty minute wait, which was a little surprising considering how packed it was. Milly started a game of checkers with a girl who was about her age who had just finished playing one with her dad. They got seated soon after the game started, so I took over. Milly got bored (demoralized?) and was ready to stop playing, but I tried to impress into her the importance of finishing what you start.
After we ate we all went to Target so Milly could pick out a Father’s Day gift for me. I putzed around by the TVs and video games while Milly and Tristen did their shopping. Milly ended up picking out for me three theater boxes of candy (actually two; the Skittles were for herself I think), a large bouncy ball with sparkles and a light-up LED light that triggers when you bounce it and a picture of the Avengers on the outside of it, and a marshmallow-scented candle. Later on she made me a card too.
She got herself a couple of Disney Princess felt (I think) posters that you color yourself.
After that we all headed to Mayfaire. We had all planned to go see Inside Out, but Tristen’s dad said something about going to see Jurassic World, so she and her sister, Torrie, took him to see that. We saw it last week, but she said she still enjoyed it the second time around.
Inside Out though, man, what a movie that was to see with a young daughter on Father’s Day.
Now, I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’m a lot more sensitive to movies like this since become a dad exactly six years and one week ago. I was streaming the first few times I saw Toy Story 3. The end of Monsters Inc. tugs pretty hard at me. And the end of The Little Mermaid? I mean, not only is the man’s daughter getting married, but she’s going off to live in a completely new world. Hell, i got choked up towards the end of The Croods.
It started with the Pixar Short, Lava, before the movie for me. I don’t think you can find the actual full video anywhere, but here’s the song. It’s about a volcano who longs for love and sings about it over thousands of years while he erodes away into nothing just before another volcano, who had been listening to him under the sea, erupts above the waves and begins to look for him.
It’s just so sweet and simple and touching.
Inside Out got me a number of times. If you don’t know, it’s about the personified emotions that run all of us: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. They’re trying to steer a young girl through the stresses of moving halfway across the country, and most of the movie takes place inside her head, where we get to see what happens with old memories and how we learn and grow from our experiences.
What really got to me was the pit they throw old memories into. There are memories that used to be very important to the girl that get cast aside and lost. It made me think about how many things Milly will never know. I can tel her how important so many memories are to me, but she’ll never fully appreciate the emotional impact of them.
I think about walking around the neighborhood with her making up stories for me. I think about the first time she watched the “Happy Lights” scene in Tangled. Dancing to songs she used to love that she doesn’t even remember anymore before she could even walk. Making up silly songs together.
A lot of it is stuff we can still do, but in the process of time and growing up, things sometimes fall by the wayside. Sometimes you don’t even know how precious a moment or a memory is until something suddenly reminds you of it, but you can only grasp at the edges of it, you can’t get the full memory or impact of it, but you can taste the emotion packed into it and you wonder why you didn’t hang onto that or keep it eternally fresh.
You know, that’s one thing I’ve wanted to do with this website, but I’ve been so terrible at it for the past year or two.
Like any great Pixar movie, it wasn’t all emotion. There were some very funny parts. I think what had me laughing the most was the end credits when they showed the emotions in other people’s (and even animals’) heads.
Inside Out got out a good bit before Jurassic World, so Milly and I went to Barnes and Noble where we played with the Nooks for a bit then read a couple books before Tristen met us there and we all went back.
Lacking sleep a bit the night before (see the opening bit of this entry), I crashed on the couch for a bit while Milly made me a card and colored on of her posters. She signed the back and had Tristen sign the back as well and said she wanted Amanda to sign the back of it too. I was a bit worried that Amanda would be offended that Tristen had singed the back too, but I have yet to hear anything about it.
We hung out some more after my nap, mostly me and Milly playing catch with the bouncy ball she got me. I took Milly to Amanda around 6:30. Since Amanda hadn’t seen Milly at all since her birthday she took tomorrow off to hang out with her.
After I dropped Milly off I met Tristen at her parents’ house, where they had a Father’s Day dinner. I didn’t think of it until now, but I was the only father without a kid there. Milly enjoys going there. They let her play with the chickens and sometimes have crafts and such to play with. On top of that, Milly has really taken to Sebastian, Torrie’s baby (and the reason Johnny got to celebrate his first Father’s Day). But we had a good time hanging out there to finish the day.