Tonight was Daddy-Daughter Date Night. I was so excited all week. As a dad with a daughter entering adulthood and soon to go off to college, you cherish these times because you know the sands are running through the hour glass. It’s hard for dads to compete with boys, other teenage girls, worship bands, cell phones, homework and anything else 18-year-olds do these days.
As the evening approached, my 18-year-old daughter did what most 18-year-old daughters would do, tried to get out of it. It was time for me to lay down the hammer. I basically made her choose – an evening with me or Christmas without a credit card. I won.
At 5:15 PM, I came down the stairs from my home office ready to go wherever she wanted for dinner. She said, “Dad, I don’t really feel good and got a ton of homework to do. If we can just order a pizza, I’ll even watch football with you. I promise.” I thought, “Am I in the middle of a Cats In The Cradle song?”
I said, “Let me go get something. Whatever you want and I’ll bring dinner back from there.” We settled on, what else, Chick-Fil-A. So I went and hit the drive-thru but I came back with a surprise for my daughter. In addition to her chicken nuggets and fruit cup, I got both of us chocolate chip cookies. When I pulled them out of the bag, I think I became the leading candidate for Father Of The Year!
We had a great dinner, solved all the world’s problems, and then sat on the sofa watching worship videos from North Point Community Church and the Orange Conference. She taught me about loop peddles. We laughed at the Christmas In Bevelton video. She even threw the old man a bone and let me watch a Chris Tomlin video. It was SO MUCH FUN!
This was the BEST NIGHT I have had in a long, long time. A quick aside before my final thoughts, if you want to see what an amazing worship leader my teenage daughter is, check out this video from NorthStar Church’s recent Ladies Night Out:
She does have a point about homework, though. We are in Finals Week. Since we could not make a full evening out of it, we have already scheduled lunch for Saturday. So two hours was all I could get tonight. I’ll take it and would not trade it for anything.
As I now sit across the room from her with both of us working on our laptops, her doing homework and me writing my thoughts, I may have never been happier. Until our next Daddy-Daughter Date Night.
BTW – she’s already trying to get out of our Saturday lunch. But she still has my credit card and that’s all the leverage I need!
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