apologies for my absence. i had a project unveiling at work on tuesday and slipped into my obsessive persona to make sure everything looked fit and fancy for the first sets of eyes.

the showing went swimmingly.

then yesterday, wednesday, i had my first dad lunch with bella as a junior high student. the slight bummer is she only gets thirty minutes for lunch. and her school isn't near any eateries. in thinking things through i remembered a city park i used to play tennis at just over the hill from her school. it had some rolling grassy hills and lots of trees. so as time neared, i got a lunch together and headed to the school. after i got her dismissed from class we made the two minute drive to the park.

the day was crazy bee-you-ta-ful, especially on our bench in the shade. after getting settled i pulled from my cooler a snarf's ham and cheese (a favorite for bella and i), a bag of chips and a large ice water. we talked about a number of things: how this was different from elementary, how we were lucky this park was so close by, how we played ogre on the playground several years ago, bella wondered what we would do in the winter (i admitted that was a good question because we were surely not going to get weather this nice all year), and we might have even talked about boys for a minute or two. then as she was finishing up her sandwich i dove into my small cooler and readied the next treat i brought. bella leaned over trying to see what i was doing but i blocked her prying view with my shoulder. then, when i lifted the bowl of chery cobbler from the weekend out with two scoops of still firm ice cream on top, my girl's face lit up like the blue-sky day.

later that night, marty asked bella how our first dad lunch of the school year went. bella told her of the cobbler and ice cream. she then said that "dad did good".

it's funny how a room of adults praising a piece of my professional work that i've spent more than six months on felt good but didn't come close to the reward i felt in getting my daughter's "dad did good" seal after a thirty minute lunch.