How Well Does My Daughter Know Me? - A Donuts With Dad Retrospective
Last week I accompanied the three-year-old ballerina to Donuts with Dad. I am a veteran of these things so I knew: only to let her paint one hand, to get there early to get a good donut, and to expect your kid to have answered questions about you with varying degrees of success.
Now the questions the kids are asked are pretty tame, but I always have this secret fear that one of the answers is going to be, “Sometimes dad says a bad word when he steps on Legos,” or something like that. So far so good, but I am pretty sure that answer is coming, probably when the one-year-old demolitions expert gets to that point. Let’s grade the ballerina’s answers.
Question: My Daddy’s name is _____
Her Answer: Daddy
Verdict: Good enough for me – 1 point
Question: My Daddy is ____ years old.
Her Answer: 13
Verdict: Not since Wilson Phillips and Bell Biv DeVoe were on the radio - 0 points
Question: My Daddy has _______ hair.
Her Answer: brown.
Verdict: Thanks to genetics at least she didn’t have none as an option, but brown it is most definitely not - 0 points
Question: My Daddy has _____________ eyes.
Her Answer: pink and blue
Verdict: This girl loves pink, but that doesn’t change the color of my eyes. She got one right so I’ll give partial credit - .5 points
Question: My Daddy likes to eat _________.
Her Answer: Potatoes.
Verdict: I could eat a baked potato every meal, and here the Irish ancestry is apparent. I have also been in what you might call an oven fry renaissance period as of late. It probably also helps this answer that she likes to mooch my potatoes – 1 point
Question: My Daddy always tells me to _____________.
Her Answer: Go to bed.
Verdict: And if she would stay there I would stop saying it! – 1 point
Question: My Daddy and I like to play ___________________.
Her Answer: Football
Verdict: Some things to bear in mind. I haven’t watch a game of football in years. We don’t even own a football. This is the child that will curl up on the couch and watch a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game with me. If you ask what she says when daddy watches baseball she will say, “GO CARDINALS!” This is the same girl that insists on watching ballet videos and having me do the lifts. Yet, her answer is football. – 0 points
Question: My favorite thing about my Daddy is __________________.
Her Answer: Going to bed.
Verdict: What I think she is referring to is our nightly bedtime rituals. Most nights I read the two older kids a bedtime story, and check the room for whatever animals the ballerina is concerned might have snuck into their room including but not limited to: lions, tigers, bears, penguins, elephants, giraffes, and ghosts. – 1 point
Final Score 4.5 of 8 points. That isn’t exactly a passing grade, but she’s cute so I guess I’ll let her get away with it.