Page 30 of Friends to WHAT?!

Wolfe

At 7:00 PM on a Friday night, AKAnota school night, my daughter tries to put herself to bed.

“I’msupertired,” she says, feigning a yawn. “Superdupertired. You should just tuck me in now, Dad. I already brushed my teeth and everything!”

I eye her dubiously. “Is that…” I sniff the air, bringing my nose closer and closer to her mischievous little body. “A scheme I smell?”

She giggles and pushes my head away from her, and a good thing, too. I was getting dangerously close to her armpit.

“Dad!” she squeals. “Stop! You don’t have time to play!”

I pull back and raise my eyebrows. “I don’t?” I ask. I look around, at all the things I have to do. Dinner dishes are done. Laundry is folded. Upkeep tidying tasks have been accomplished. “It looks to me likeallI have is time to play.”

She shakes her head at my clear idiocy, and it reminds me so much of my mother, I can’t help but laugh. “You look just like Gigi.”

She lifts her nose in the air and says haughtily, “That’s probably because you’re acting silly, just like you do with her.”

My laughter roars, and I scoop her up into my arms, ignoring her squeaks of protest. “No bedtime,” I tell her. “I’m not missing a minute of my time with you just becauseyou’refeeling impatient.”

“I’m not impatient!” she protests. “Miss Leora is probably down there waiting for you right now!”

“Aha!” I declare while falling into the soft embrace of our cozy blue couch. “So youwerescheming.”

“It’s not scheming,” she huffs. She crosses her arms over her chest indignantly. “It’s helping. You’re going to be late. Miss Leora can’t wait down there all night for you. She has an early bedtime, just like me. She told me so. She said she has to go to bed on time even when it’s the weekend or summer, and I have to, too, so she’s not all alone in dreamland. She told me she only gets to stay up late if she’s visiting Auntie Almond or her grandparents. That’s why I’m allowed to stay up until nine-thirty when I stay with Auntie Almond or my grandparents. ’Cause it’s special.”

I contain my amusement. Barely. “Don’t you think Miss Leora would consider hanging out with me to be special, too?” I ask. “Maybe even special enough to stay up past her bedtime?”

Amia’s dark eyebrows furrow, and her nose scrunches. “Why would hanging out with you be special?” she asks.

Oof.

I keep my face carefully pleasant despite theouchhhhI’m feeling inside. Amia won’t be little forever. She won’t think chilling with me is fun forever. I know that. Still, I didn’t think my cool factor would disappear so soon. I thought I’d get at least ten years, maybe even eleven if I’m lucky. Eight seems abysmally few.

“You’re aboy,” Amia continues as I battle the bittersweet pain of her growing up. Then, unknowingly, she balms my hurt, and it seeps back down to wait for the time of resurgence. “I’m the only one that thinks hanging out with you is special, and that’s ’cause you’re my dad. You’re not Miss Leora’s dad. You’re just aboyto Miss Leora. She’s definitely not staying up late for aboy.”

I sag further into the couch, settling Amia comfortably on my chest. She digs her elbows into my pectorals to push her upper body up so she can look at me seriously. Very, very seriously.

And I take her seriously. Of course. I do not struggleat allto maintain a neutral face as hers adopts a demeanor I know all too well—my mother’s lecturing demeanor.

I tuck my hands behind my head and prepare myself. Amia has, clearly, learned from the best. I’m about to be in for a real treat.

“Daddy,” she begins sternly, leveling her eyes on me. “You cannotmess this up. If you want Miss Leora to think you’re special enough to miss bedtime for, you have to show her that you can be a good enough friend to her to make it worth it. That means you can’t make her wait a whole bunch of hours for you if you have plans together. That’s called being late, and being late is meanie behavior, remember?” She shifts from quoting snatches of my mother’s lessons to quoting my own. “It’s unkind and inconsiderate. We are not a family who acts unkind and inconsiderate. It’s okay to be late sometimes, because it happens to everyone and sometimes it’s out of our control, but if we make it a habit, then it’s not just being late that’s our habit. It’s being unkind and inconsiderate that’s our habit.”

I blink as she rolls, landing on her feet with all the grace of a newborn deer. “And so!” she proclaims. “I am going to bed, so that you won’t be unkind and inconsiderate. Because I’m agood kid.” She nods succinctly, turns on her heel, and marches toward her bedroom.

I catch her with a finger in the waistband of her pale pink pajama bottoms.

She tumbles back toward me with a squawk.

“My turn,” I tell her, spinning her around to face me and circling her with my arm, locking her in place.

She pouts at her foiled getaway.

“Thank you,” I tell her, then lean in to kiss her on the nose.

She blinks. “Thank me?” she asks before remembering herself. “I mean, yeah. Thank me. You’re welcome.”

I chuckle. “I see what you’re doing, and I appreciate it,” I tell her. “Even if you’re only doing it so you can meet Miss Leora faster.”