The Daycare Window Dance

When my younger daughter was a toddler, we'd always have this conversation at daycare drop-off:

Her: I want to wave to you at the window.

Me: Okay, and I'll wave to you!

Her: I'm going to beat you!

She'd run off and wait for me at the window facing the parking lot. My job was to go outside, wave to her, blow kisses, and dance a little jig before getting in my car.  Yes, a jig.  You’d do it, too.

But sometimes, I'd forget.

I'd wind up talking with other parents. Or I'd sprint to my car during one of our frigid Upper Valley winters. Or I'd see a shiny object.  Whatever the reason, I'd forget she was behind me, watching me walk away.

The teachers often saved me by knocking on the window.  Hey. Remember that thing you promised your kid you’d do five seconds ago?  Let’s revisit that. 

Suddenly I'd see her tiny crestfallen face in the window, sometimes crying, sometimes with a little friend standing beside her whom I could tell was thinking, wow, sucks to be you.

To compensate for almost leaving and clearly not loving her at all, I'd run to the window and do a frantic, exaggerated version of the wave-kiss-jig.  “Bye, love you” became, “BYE! BYE! (wave wave wave) MOMMY LOOOOOVES (air hug) YOU!  YOU! (point point) Mwah! Mwah!  Mwah!”

So there I'd be, performing interpretive dance in the middle of Hanover and really not even thinking twice about it. The other moms and dads would walk around me, smiling. Parenthood has taken my threshold for embarrassment to an all-time high.

Which is why, when she has a toddler of her own, I can't wait for my daughter to call me up and say, "You won't believe what I did in public today."

Oh, yes I will.