Saturday Morning Rituals
Complete: 3/3/05
Rating: G
Summary: Josh and Emily have a little father daughter time.
Feedback: Duh! – jengwilson@comcast.net
Author’s Notes: Seventh in the "Emily's World" series.
“May I help you?” the kid behind the counter asks me. I smile and point to the four-foot angel in front of me. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there. May I help you?” he asks Emily with a smile.
“Yes please,” she says while tilting her head and pretending to study the menu. “I’d like a tall caramel apple cider, but I don’t want any caramel or whipped cream and I don’t want it all warm.”
“So basically you want apple juice,” he says to her. Emily likes to think she’s an adult. Apple juice is a kid’s drink, a tall caramel apple cider, sans the caramel, whipped cream and not heated is a very adult drink to her.
She takes a deep breath and smiles that specific smile a woman gets when she’s trying to keep her temper in check. I see it a lot from Donna. “Is Eric here?” she asks politely.
The kid looks at her and then calls for Eric, who appears a moment later. “Emily Joan Lyman, how are you today?” Is it wrong that I worry a little bit about the flirtatious way the seventeen year old treats my five year-old daughter? Donna says he’s just being sweet; I’m not so sure.
Emily smiles up at him with her three missing teeth like he’s the most perfect thing in the world. “Hi Eric!” I do my best not to sneer at him. When she turns six, we’re switching Starbucks.
“Would you like your regular today Miss Lyman?” Starbucks is a Saturday morning ritual.
“Yes please,” she says, nodding once.
He looks over his shoulder. “I need one tall caramel apple cider, no whipped cream, no caramel, chilled and a croissant toasted with extra grape jelly on the side.” Then he looks back at Emily. “That’ll be right up beautiful,” he says with a wink.
“Ok,” I say, stepping in before my daughter marries the Starbucks guy. “I’ll have a venti café Verona.”
“Daddy,” Emily says with raised eyebrows.
“Yes?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “You know you’re supposed to have decaf.”
“Only when Mommy’s here.”
“Daddy!” she yells, her mouth dropping open. Good Lord, she looks like Donna.
“I’m kidding,” I say emphatically. I’m not kidding, but Emily’s a tattletale. “Make that decaf,” I grumble out to Eric.
I pay and Emily goes to save us our favorite seat out front, also a Saturday morning ritual. When I get her over-priced apple juice and croissant and my decaf why bother coffee, I watch her for a minute before going to the table. She has her sunglasses on and she’s sitting like a tiny adult with her legs crossed and her arms resting on the arm rests holding the cartoon section of the Saturday paper in her lap studying it as if it were the business section. She looks just the way I imagine Donna did at that age, and her toothless grin and occasional giggle captures the attention of everyone who walks by. I look around and notice an elderly woman nudge her husband and point at her with a wistful smile on her face. Yeah, that’s my baby.
“Anything important in the paper today?” I ask, walking up to the table.
Without looking up, she replies, “Calvin and Hobbs are up to no good.”
“Aren’t they always?” I put her croissant and apple juice down in front of her.
“Can I put my own jelly on it?” she asks innocently.
“May I, and yes you may.”
She smiles at me like I’m her hero. “Yes!” she whispers while making a fist and pumping it in the air. The little things… Then she puts down the paper and proceeds to put about a pound of grape jelly on half of her croissant. When she takes a bite, a big glop drips down her shirt and she looks up at me with an uh oh look on her face.
“You’ve got a little jelly on your shirt there, kiddo,” I say with a smile. I get in a little trouble every Saturday from my wife. Saturday morning is Donna’s alone time, and Emily and I spend the morning together. When we get home around noon or one, Emily’s usually pretty messy. There’s almost always jelly on her, as well as apple cider and dirt from the park. Donna keeps trying to get me to carry wipes with me, but Em and I just lose them.
“Why can’t the jelly just stay put?” she asks in an exasperated voice as she picks her shirt up from the hem and sucks the jelly off it and into her mouth.
“Jelly’s very slippery,” I say in an amused voice.
She looks up at me very seriously. “I know.”
“You’ve ahh…got a little on your mouth there too.” She raises her eyebrows at me and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Because why use a napkin if you’ve got a hand?
A few minutes later, I see Congressman Wolfe coming towards us down the sidewalk. As he gets closer, he says hello.
“Congressman,” I say, shaking his hand. “How are you this morning?”
“Well, thank you.”
He looks at Emily, who’s let her paper fall into her lap and is sizing him up from her seat. “This is my daughter, Emily.”
Emily reaches out and shakes his hand. I’m guessing by the way he looks at if afterwards that she got jelly on him. “Hello Emily. You look just like your mommy,” he says with a smile.
“Thank you. Are you a republican or a democrat?” Well, we’ll just skip right past the pleasantries.
“I’m a republican,” he says, grinning over at me. “How about you?”
She smiles sweetly. “A democrat, of course. Guns are bad and helping people is good. And I’m the future, so teaching me all the way through college should be the biggest thing you do. And not just in math and science, which is boring by the way, but through art and music and things that help my majicnation.”
He nods at her. “I see. You’re a very smart little girl.”
“Thank you. You can turn into a democrat too. My daddy could help you.”
He laughs a little. “Well, if I do decide to turn into one, I’ll let him know.”
Her smile gets bigger. “Ok.”
The congressman turns to me. “Enjoy your weekend Josh. I guess I’ll be seeing you Wednesday about the Early Education bill Seaborn’s working on.”
“Yes Sir.” I shake his hand again.
“We need that money, Congressman,” Emily tells him seriously.
“On this we agree, little one,” he says before winking at her and walking inside.
“Why do people always call me little?” she asks herself after he leaves while taking a drink of her apple caramel cider. Then she looks back down at her paper and continues reading.
**********
About a half hour later we head for the park. The park’s been a Saturday morning ritual since we stopped watching Sponge Bob.
“Can I sit on your shoulders?” she asks as we’re walking.
“Are you gonna pull my hair?”
“No. Mommy says you don’t have enough left to play with.”
I raise my eyebrows. “She does?”
“Yes.”
I reach down and pick her up, putting her on my shoulders. She’s got about fifteen more pounds until this ends. “She’s not very nice.”
“She says nice stuff about you too,” she says innocently, putting her hands in my hair to hold on. Looking back, I should’ve had her wash her hands before we left Starbucks.
“She does?”
“Yeah. She missed you a whole lot when you were gone with Uncle Sam. She and Aunt CJ talked about you while we shopped and ate ice cream.”
I look up at her. “They did?”
She nods. “Mommy said that she missed cuddling with you at night and Aunt CJ said she always knew you were a cuddler.”
“I don’t like to cuddle!”
“Daddy….”
I almost run into a man, so I look forward again. “Fine. I like to cuddle. But do we have to tell Aunt CJ that?”
“She also said that you get hot when you wear jeans.”
“What?” I get hot when I wear jeans?
“Especially on your bottom.”
Ok… that’s Emily talk for ‘Donna thinks my ass looks hot in jeans.’ Emily has no idea of the ammunition she gives me. “What else?” I ask innocently.
“She told her you’re ticklish.”
“She did?” I screech, which makes Emily giggle.
“Yep.”
Great, CJ knowing that I’m a cuddler and ticklish. Donna doesn’t go out of her way to make me look manly. “Yeah, well Mommy’s ticklish too.”
“Not me though.”
“No, not you,” I say, and I stop walking and reach up to tickling her sides. She starts laughing and squirming.
“Ok!” she yells while she laughs. Her legs are flailing about and she kicks me in the face. Yeah, that’s gonna hurt later.
“I thought you weren’t ticklish.”
“I’m ticklish! I’m ticklish!”
“Say Uncle.”
“Uncle!” I stop tickling her and start walking again.
“I’m so tall up here,” she says a minute later when she’s calmed down a little.
I look up at her again and she has the most amazing smile, like she’s looking at something brand new. “What ‘ya looking at?”
“I can see the whole wide world from up here!” she exclaims.
“Really?” I ask astounded.
“Well, I can see President Washington’s miliment.”
“Monument.”
“That’s what I said. It looks like a pencil.”
“A little bit.”
“Daddy, spin me!”
“Em…” I look like a moron when I spin her. We’re in public for crying’ out loud; I have a reputation to live up to.
“Please…..” she drawls out.
I sigh. “Once.”
“Nine times!”
“Nine? I’ll get dizzy and fall over. Three.”
“Six.”
“Four and two kisses.”
“Five and one kiss.”
“Deal.” I stop walking, hold Emily by the legs and spin around on the sidewalk five times while she holds her arms out to the side and yells ‘weeee’. Where do kids get their sound effects?
When we’re done, she leans down and kisses the top of my head. “That doesn’t count.”
“Of course it does,” she says in a way that sounds far too much like her mother.
I shake my head. “No, no, no. I need a kiss on the cheek.”
“You should’ve been pacific when we were negoshiting.”
Wow. Very good point. “I’m impressed, Lyman.”
“Thank you. I think I would like to ride in a hot air balloon.”
Ok, topic switch. Another trait she got from her mother. “You would?”
“Yes, but not one with more balloons on it. Maybe one with ribbons or a rainbow on it.”
“Right. That’s pretty important when you’re deciding which hot air balloon to ride in.”
“I know.”
**********
We get to the park a few minutes later and Emily jumps off me and runs to the swings. “Push me, Daddy! Push me!” She might be a little on the demanding side.
She sits down in the swing and puts her legs out, pointing her toes. I don’t know why kids point their toes when they swing, but a quick glance at the other two kids swinging tells me it’s an every kid thing. “Super duper high, Daddy.”
“Of course!” I start pushing her and she starts laughing. And the higher she goes, the more she laughs. And the more she laughs, the more I think this is the absolute highlight of my week.
When she’s going super duper high, I stand back and she leans as far back as her arms will let her and lets her head fall all the way backwards. This, of course, is how we get dirt in her hair, but after the jelly and apple juice issues, Donna’s going to throw her in the tub as soon as we get home anyway. In fact, Emily in the tub while Donna and I have a quickie is yet another Saturday morning ritual.
When she starts to slow down, I step forward and give her a few more pushes, then step back again. It’s possible that she’s going to work for the circus on the flying trapeze when she grows up… if I have absolutely no say about it. She just loves the feeling of flying. I don’t think she’s afraid of anything. Of course, if you ask her, she’s going to be the president, but not until after her art career takes off. And let me just say, if that’s the case, she’s never going to be the president.
She swings for a solid forty-five minutes, no exaggeration. But finally, she decides she’s done. “Stay here, Daddy,” she reminds me as she runs for the slide. I’m not allowed to stand at the end of the slide to catch her. According to her, only babies and uncool kids have someone at the bottom.
I watch from a nearby bench as she stands in line at the slide. There’s a little boy right behind her, probably three, and when Emily sees him, she lets him go in front of her. Then she looks over at me and gives me the ‘aren’t I sweet’ smile. And yes, she is.
When the little boy goes up the ladder, I hear her helping him. “Hold on tight and you won’t fall.” The kid’s mom stands aside and lets Emily help him instead of embarrassing him, and Emily climbs up right behind him. “Two more steps.” When he gets to the top, she says, “Very good. You’re very brave,” and he turns around and smiles at her. Then she helps him sit down and once his mother’s at the bottom of the slide, she gives him a small push and down he goes. When he gets to the bottom, she claps for him and he smiles at her again. Great. Another kid in love with my daughter.
**********
“I’ve been thinking…” she says as she swings our joined hands together on the walk home. I don’t know how much longer I get the handholding before she thinks she’s too old for it, but I’ll take every second I can get.
“And what have you been thinking about?”
“Maybe we should get a pet,” she says casually.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “A pet?”
She shrugs. “Calvin has Hobbs.”
“You want a tiger?” I ask her.
“No silly! A tiger would be too big to sleep in my bed with me.” She laughs at me like I’m the kid.
“That’s true,” I say nodding. “Tigers are pretty big.”
“I don’t think Mommy would want a tiger in the house.”
“I bet it’d be messy.”
“And she says we’re messy enough. Maybe a cat.”
“You’re allergic to cats.”
She looks at me suspiciously. “Are you just saying that so I can’t get one?”
I can’t help smiling. “No, although if that’s what it came down to, I might.”
“I don’t really know what that means,” she says, tilting her head.
I smile at her. “It means you’re allergic to cats. And that there’s jelly in your hair.”
“I told you we should’ve put it in a pony tail,” she says shrugging. “Maybe a rabbit.”
Gross. Rabbit crap all over the townhouse. “Maybe a fish,” I say suggestively.
“No,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“No?”
“My last fish died and the one before that ran away. I’m through with fish,” she says, gesturing with her other hand.
“I see. Maybe a dog.”
“A dog?”
“Uncle Sam has a dog.”
“Yes, but she licks my face when I get too close to her. Remember when my mouth was open and she licked inside it! I had to brush my teeth a hundred times that day. It was gross.” And there it is, the infamous ‘ick’ look. Hers is better than most, I think.
“Dogs do like to lick. How about a snake?”
“Daddy!!!” Emily hates snakes.
I shrug. “It was just an idea,” I say with a smirk.
“How about a big taranchalata spider,” she says, glaring at me.
“Emily!!!!” I say with big eyes. Spiders are evil, evil creatures. They stalk their prey, and I am their prey.
“You said snakes!”
“Ok. No spiders and no snakes.”
“And no mice,” she says.
“Agreed. Mice are gross.”
“Super gross.”
“Super duper gross.”
“Super duper duper gross.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s pretty gross.”
“This is hard.”
“Well, if you’re serious, you need to put together a bill.” We’ve just begun putting together bills with Emily.
“What kind of stuff would I put in the bill?”
“You should do some research. Decide what kind of pet you want, what kind of food it eats, what kind of training they need, things like that. And then you need to ask yourself very seriously if you would be a good pet owner. You’d have to clean-up after it, take it outside if it’s that kind of pet, play with it so it isn’t lonely…”
“Name it; teach it tricks.”
I nod hesitantly. “Yes, that too.”
She puts a finger up to her mouth, which, considering where her hands have been today, is pretty disgusting. “I bet Mommy would help me with my research.”
I can’t help smiling. “I don’t know…” I say sarcastically. Donna lives for research.
She nods. “I bet she’d use note cards and everything, maybe even multi-colored ones.”
“You and Mommy are note card crazy. But then, once your research is together, you’ll have to present an offer to Mommy and me. Why we should let you have a pet.”
“Because you love me?”
“Well, yes… but why else?”
“Cause I’m good most of the time?”
I nod and smile. “That’s a pretty good argument.”
“And I do good in school,” she says excitedly.
“Very good. You’ve got a negative that Mommy’s gonna bring up right away, though.”
“I do?” she asks as though she can’t fathom the possibility of being less than perfect.
“Your room. How can you clean up after a pet if you can’t clean up after yourself?”
“Oh… how come you don’t have to clean your room?”
“Well, I don’t have a pet for one thing.”
“But you have me and I’m a big sponsibility.”
I scoop her up and throw her over my shoulder while she giggles. “True. You’re kind of like a pet. Do you do tricks?”
**********
We walk in the door and Emily shouts, “We’re home!” at the top of her lungs. That’s no so much a Saturday morning ritual as it is an every time she walks in the door ritual.
Donna comes down the stairs, still in her pajamas, which tells me the bathtub/sex ritual is a go this morning. “The shouting Emily,” she says with a smile.
“Sorry.”
“Did you two have fun today?”
“Yes!” Emily sing songs as I put her down and give Donna a kiss, at which point Emily groans, clearly disgusted by our actions.
Donna chuckles and kneels down in front of her. “You look like you had fun. You also look like you had grape jelly.”
Emily flashes her dimples. She’s learning well. “Yes I did,” she says, kissing Donna on the cheek.
“To the tub, little one,” Donna says, pointing towards Emily’s room.
“Can I clean my room after I get out?”
“What?”
“When I’m out of the tub, can I clean my room?”
Donna looks up at me with a mixture of amusement, pride, surprise and fear on her face before looking back at Emily and answering. “May I, and yes you may.”
“And later, may I do some research online, and will you help me?” she asks, stressing the word ‘may.’
Donna nods. “Absolutely. I even have some multi-colored note cards in the office.”
“Told you, Daddy,” she shouts as she runs up the steps towards her room.
“What was that about?” Donna asks me when Emily’s out of site.
“Let’s just say there’s a bill coming our way,” I say as I grab her hand and head up to our room.