Fridays with my daughter

Since shortly after Christmas I have spent nearly every day, all day, with my daughter. Until this week, that is, which has been a bit of a transition. While I’m very excited about my new job and enjoying the opportunity to be back at work, I find myself missing Miya a lot more than I had expected.

So I look forward to Fridays, my one-on-one day with my little girl.

We have a very busy morning, starting with gymnastics at 9:15 (we are almost always a few minutes late). Most of the class is little circuits in various parts of the large gym area – things like walking along balance beam of various heights, hanging from the rings, climbing, crawling, jumping. The instructor will assist kids through movements like somersaults on the beam or over the bar. She had M doing headstands and backbends today. M is really good about letting the instructor flip her around, although she gets a very serious expression at the time.

After gymnastics, it’s straight from there to the senior’s centre where we spend an hour visiting and playing. M was fantastic today – she had wanted to bring along her WWF orangutan this morning and she was proudly showing it off to the seniors. I’d suggest a resident she could show it to and she’d run over and put the furry little orangutan in their hands or on their lap. Sometimes they would dozing off and wake to find a little person thrusting a bright orange animal at them. But they always responded with joy. She’d sometimes let them hold it for a few seconds, then she’d take it back and come running back to me. I’d point out someone else in the room who might like to see it, and she’d head off. Very cute.

After our visit, we head back home for lunch and nap. Then in the afternoon we’ll go out and do some errands – probably going to pick up Valentine’s cards today since she loves decorating cards. Colouring and putting stickers on cards for her friends will likely easily fill up the rest of our afternoon.

Time goes quickly when we’re having fun with someone we love.