After the drive to Myrtle Beach, I figured Day One had nowhere to go but up.
This was probably my first mistake.
If you remember where we left off, Kara had taken a bite of a brisket sandwich on the drive down and part of her tooth had basically decided it was done participating in childhood. Pieces of tooth are generally something a father notices, particularly when you’re several hundred miles from the dentist who normally handles such things. So one of my first jobs on vacation was finding a dentist.
Nothing says Welcome to Myrtle Beach quite like searching for dentists in network while everybody else is thinking about the beach.
Eventually, I found somewhere that could see her, but we had some time before the appointment. That meant Kara and I suddenly had something we don’t get very often: a few hours with nowhere particularly important to be and nobody else with us.
So we made a day of it.
We went to Bass Pro Shops, where we looked at the fish and wandered around looking at guns for a while. Then we headed over to Books-A-Million and spent some time looking through the shelves so Kara could pick out a book. Nothing particularly spectacular happened. There wasn’t some grand father-daughter vacation activity planned months in advance. We were just wandering around together, looking at things we liked and enjoying the day.
Of course, eventually we got hungry, so we went to Chick-fil-A. This is where I learned—or perhaps was reminded—that I am now only 20 points away from their top-tier customer level.
I’m not entirely sure whether that’s an accomplishment or an intervention needing to happen.
At this point, I feel like I should just walk in, order a Coke, and have somebody come out from behind the counter with a little ceremony. Maybe a plaque. Perhaps they’ll hang my picture somewhere.
This man has eaten an unreasonable amount of chicken.
But sitting there with Kara, somewhere between Bass Pro Shops, books, chicken, and an appointment neither of us particularly wanted to go to, something occurred to me:
I don’t do this enough.
I spend a lot of time with my kids. With four of them, it’s actually rather difficult not to spend time with my kids. They’re everywhere. Somebody needs something. Somebody is hungry. Somebody can’t find something that was apparently in their hand thirty seconds ago. Somebody is arguing with somebody else because they looked at them.
We do things together as a family all the time, but that’s different from spending time with one of them. Just Kara. No brothers. No little sister. Nobody competing for Dad’s attention. No trying to carry on four conversations while simultaneously figuring out where we’re supposed to be going. Just me and my daughter wandering around a bookstore, looking at fish, eating chicken, and killing time before a dentist appointment.
And I really enjoyed it.
That’s one of those things about having several kids that’s easy to miss. You can be a very involved dad and still suddenly realize you haven’t spent much time alone with one particular child lately. They’re all growing up at the same time, but they’re not growing up as a group.
Logan is becoming his own person. Kara is becoming her own person. Slayden is becoming his own person. Moira is certainly becoming her own person, whether civilization is prepared for that or not. Sometimes Dad needs to shut everything else out for a little while and get to know them individually.
What began as an emergency dentist trip had turned into a pretty good day with Kara.
Eventually, though, we did have to deal with the reason we were out in the first place.
The tooth.
We went to the dentist expecting to find out what terrible thing had happened and what $8,0000 repair needed to be done immediately. The verdict was essentially… nothing.
Well, not nothing. Her tooth had obviously broken. We hadn’t hallucinated that part. But nothing was terribly wrong. Nothing needed emergency vacation dental work. There was no reason to spend the first day of our Myrtle Beach vacation undergoing some great dental ordeal.
Basically: Call your dentist when you get home.
That was it. We had found a dentist in another state, arranged an appointment during vacation, gone through the concern of wondering what was wrong with her tooth, and the professional recommendation was essentially to go enjoy our vacation.
Which, come to think of it, is probably one of the better diagnoses I’ve ever received.
Meanwhile, There Was Soda To Be Found
Later that evening, Jo and I needed to go get drinks. And wouldn’t you know it, Kroger was running one of those sales specifically designed to defeat whatever tiny amount of financial restraint I possess:
Buy two, get three free. Five cases of soda! I don’t know who at Kroger approved this arrangement, but I would like that person to know their work is appreciated. There are moments when you have to ask yourself whether you actually need that much soda. This was not one of those moments.
It was vacation. The air conditioner in the van had already betrayed us. I had cooked one arm on the drive down. We’d survived the Great Sewing Pin Incident. Kara’s tooth had exploded. We’d listened to Slayden and Moira litigate the legality of looking at one another for hours.
I had earned this.
So Jo and I went back with what can only be described as a tremendous quantity of soda. And somehow, after everything that had happened since we left Virginia, Day One turned out pretty good.
Kara’s tooth wasn’t an emergency. We had enough soda to establish a our own concession stand. And I got something I hadn’t expected when I woke up that morning: a little time alone with my daughter.
I went looking for a dentist because I thought something was wrong with Kara’s tooth. Turns out, nothing really was. But the trip still reminded me of something I probably needed reminding of.
With four kids, it’s easy to spend all your time together and still forget to spend time with each of them. They won’t always be little. They won’t always be sitting beside me waiting for a dentist appointment. Someday I’m probably going to wish I could trade quite a lot for one more afternoon when there was nowhere particularly important to be.
So maybe the tooth wasn’t an emergency. Maybe Dad needed the appointment.
Hope today is a good news day,
austininva
You can find more of our family chaos in the Olde Dominion Dad stories.
