I definitely don’t feel comfortable giving her a bath, but it’s adorable that she’s showing me how it’s done. As if I, a grown man, couldn’t figure it out.
“You don’t want the water to be too hot,” she’s telling me. “And you don’t want it to be too cold. See?” She takes a bottle of bubble bath and hands it to me. “You add some of this to make the water bubbly. It’s called Mr. Bubble.”
Skipper watches as I twist the cap off and go to pour it. “Not too much.”
I glance at Penelope over my shoulder. “Little hall monitor, hey?”
She scoffs. “Lord, you don’t even know.”
“Should I go pick a book out?” I ask her, not sure what to do with myself now that it’s time to plop our daughter into the bath. I imagine that there isn’t much that needs to be done. Skipper is seven and old enough to do most of the work herself. So the least I can do is busy myself by choosing a story to read.
“Good idea.” She nods. “Her favorites are on the top shelf.”
Nodding, I head back into Skipper’s bedroom, her little voice following me out the door.
“Do you do voices, Jack?”
Voices? “What do you mean?”
“You know,” she calls out. “When the mom talks to the baby, she uses a mom voice, and when the bear talks to Goldilocks, he uses a bear voice.”
Oh, jeez. “Sure, I can do voices.”
Not well, but I’ll give it the old college try.
It takes forever for me to pick out a story, the stacks of books so high I’m not sure where to begin. I stare at the covers of each one, thumbing through the books that are actually filed on the shelves.
In the end, I choose three, and Skipper can have the final say.
The bath ends quickly, and before long, she’s scampering back through her bedroom door, hopping on one foot with wet hair and purple pajamas and a giggly little grin that causes my heart to squeeze.
She gets right down to business, climbing onto her twin bed, with its pony blankets and pony pillowcase and if I need to get her a gift, I’ll know exactly what to buy for her.
Her hands fold in her lap, and I get a whiff of her strawberry hair and pink bubblegum skin and want to hug her so tight.
Don’t cry, dude.
Do. Not. Cry.
But it’s hard. She’s so damn adorable and so stinking cute.
Fuck.
Don’t cry.
It’s a story—just read the story, you got this.
“Did you pick one?” Her brows rise, and she looks so much like Penn and so much like me at this moment I wonder how I didn’t see it that day in the green room at the stadium.
“I picked three. I was going to—”
“I get three books?” Her mouth forms an O of excitement. “Cool!”
“No.” I laugh. “I chose three and was going to let you choose. It was a much tougher decision than I thought. You have great taste in books.”
She nods solemnly. “I do.”
I hand her the books, setting them on her pint-sized lap for her perusal, amused when she takes the task seriously, studying each one anew as if she’s never seen these books before, which I seriously doubt is the case.
“Oh, this one is good. Have you read it before?” she asks me.
“Gilly’s Great Green Garden Patch? Um, no.”
“It’s about a tadpole who lives in water but wants to have a garden. The pictures are so bright and cheerful, but it’s kind of babyish.”
Oh, shit. I picked a book that’s too babyish?
Dad fail.
“Is this the book you might want to read?”
Skipper cocks her head to the side, debating. “I don’t think so. Let me see Ponies on Parade, Dash’s Big Dream.”
I hand her the purple pony book, and she immediately thumbs through it.
“I like this book because it’s also a movie,” she’s telling me. “Dash has a dream, and this guy”—she points at a unicorn with a fire mane—“this guy tries to stop her.”
“That sounds very interesting.” I look up to gauge Penelope’s thoughts, but she’s no longer filling the doorway looking on. Nor do I hear her in the bathroom.
She’s giving us our privacy, letting us bond.
It feels heavy. A weighty moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
The first time I read my daughter a book.
It’s then that I realize this is only one of many firsts. The first of hundreds of firsts in our lives—Skipper’s, Penn’s, and mine—this one shooting its way to the top of my list of memories.
I shake my head to stay focused. “I vote we read about Dash because you love ponies, and I want to know all about the things you love.”
This seems to make Skipper happy, and she nods, setting the other two books on her bedside table and handing the keeper to me. She relaxes back on her pillow and folds her hands once again as she settles in for the story.