The Last First

A few years ago, Campbell Clansman and I came up with the idea of "Date Nights with Dad." I am sure other families do this, as well. For us, it seemed imporant that in a family with four sisters, each occasionally had time alone with their Papa to talk, to joke, to express what is going on in their lives. This Spring, he wanted to take each of them, individually, out to dinner before the busy-ness of summer began. One of the conditions is that the daughter must be school-aged. Last week was Perma-Baby's first-ever date night with Papa. She'd heard all about what to expect from her sisters, and she was very excited.

The way it works now is that the girl gets to choose the restaurant. Papa says that isn't going to last forever. When they get older, he is picking the restaurant. It just wouldn't do for them to one day hop in the pickup of some boy and say, "Hi, take me to....(restaurant), that's my pick for the night." The man chooses, he's told them. But for now, it's fun to see where they want to go. Firstborn (Mary Erin) usually picks Chinese, although on this last one, they went to a mall because she had a gift certificate to use (that's another blog post...I laughed til I cried when he told me about their date night!) Twinkle Toes (Annika) usually goes for manti, her favorite Turkish food. Miss Middler (Essie) several times has picked "The Puppet Place," a Turkish place that has old-timey Turkish puppets on strings. Well, Perma-Baby did not shock us in the least when she picked McDonald's.

PB had put on her prettiest Spring coat and her cutest summer sandals. And right on time, her date arrived to pick her up.

Her date did not disappoint!