Reporting Back on Saturday's Play Date

The six-year-old had a play date on Saturday. She and her date - a new one from the new school - had fun and all went well.

In case you're wondering how parents can possibly know for sure how a play date went, towards the end of their time together my wife overheard the little visitor whisper to my daughter: "I knew this was going to be a great play date!" (the giant, bolded font has been used to represent how 6-year-olds whisper).

During the date, the girls did the usual play date things: a painting-teacups-and-saucers craft, a tea party complete with stuffed animal guests, a little bit of spying on the grownups complete with nefarious giggles, and a little bit of gorging on cupcakes right before dinner.

If you have a six-year-old boy, you may not be familiar with the rituals of an all-girl six-year-old play date. Or, maybe they're exactly the same. What do I know?

When the date was over, the girls hugged and parted ways. Arrangements were made for a second date next weekend.

Before any of my daughters' friends from her old school get jealous, please remember that you all had a chance to come over on Friday night to hang out with her. We no longer need to have play dates with any of you. You're now family and family members have 'get-togethers'.

My wife and I went up to my daughters' bedroom a little later on and saw her room as messy as it has EVER been. Probably messier than her older sisters' bedrooms have EVER been. "No problem," said my wife with a loving smile, "we'll clean it in the morning."

Whoa! Wait a minute! Hold the phone! My wife saw a really, really messy bedroom and said that???!??! Really? If you're an older daughter of ours you understand how out of character that is. You might even resent it. When Mom sees your bedroom with the slippers by the foot of the bed slightly askew, she shrieks your entire name (first, first-middle, second-middle, and last), curses in Italian, and declares that the room looks like"A DISASTER AREA"(the giant, bolded font has been used to represent how she patiently explains her position on something). But the six-year-old gets a loving smile and a morning clean up. Sheesh.

David though (that's me, third-person), feeling like it's only fair to treat the six-year-old at least a little bit like her sisters, insisted that we all pitch in and clean up the room before bed. So we did. The end.

But now we get to the humbling part and the real point of this post... While cleaning up, I noticed that the little visitor had written all sorts of Post-it Notes and hung them all over the room. They had cute little messages on them written for and about my daughter. While we were reading them, my daughter said with the cute and oh, so wrong innocence of childhood: “They’re magnetic! That’s how they stick to the wall.”  

I, of course, being a great dad, realized that a learning moment was at hand: “They’re not magnetic, oh sweet one,” I  began, “they’re called ‘Post-it Notes'. They’ve got a little bit of glue on them – not sticky enough to get stuck to the wall, but just enough to hold onto the wall and allow you to still peel them off easily.” 

“No, they’re magnetic,” said she, again with the endearing and misguided certainty of the very young. 

“No, honey, they’re not magnetic. As I said, they stick because of a special kind of glue…” I then told her the history of the discovery of the Post-it Note, and explained all about happy accidents and innovation. I was about to bring her downstairs to show her the Post-it Notes website and all of the different colours and sizes they come in, when I turned over the pad and saw that they weren't Post-it Notes at all. They were some kind of newfangled magnetic note!

I then felt the back of the magnetic notes and realized that THERE WAS NO GLUE STRIP. These little things were sticking to wall WITHOUT GLUE! They were indeed magnetic.

I then declared that I was wrong, great dad that I am.

And now the six-year-old knows that sometimes, rarely but sometimes, Daddy can be wrong.

Good thing the older two still believe in me. They still believe that Daddy can do 7-digit multiplication in his head. All the little one can hold onto is that Daddy is nearly perfect, but he does admit he's wrong on those very rare occasions when he is. 

I guess that's something.