His Turn

When I think of my father I remember key events that taught or reminded me of what a great dad he was. Sure there was the everyday good dad stuff (mixed in with the times that I disliked/was embarrassed/disagreed with him). But there were certain times that he did big things that fit into the category of SuperDad and are recalled with “remember the time when…” There was the time that he pounded a hole in my closet wall because we thought our cat was stuck in there (it wasn’t). And when he drove halfway across the US with one of the family cats who’d decided it would rather stay at the old house during moving day, thank you very much. Or when he drove 3 hours to pick me up on Christmas eve when my car broke down (interesting that the events had to do with cats or cars). Sure, stuff that we do do as parents. But memorable nonetheless.

Well, my husband is earning one of those memories for Alice today. She decided to put the extensions back in her hair (a whole bunch of people including me tried to talk her out of it since her short haircut is so cute, but she really wanted her long hair back – she felt that it was just more who she is). Only this time without gluing them in (she’s having a weave and pinch braids?). And to pay for it with her Aveda money. She’s having it done by her favorite stylist and was told it would 2 or 3 hours to have it done. Since I’ve accompanied Alice to pretty much every one of her haircuts and modeling gigs, and since I have a big project for work to finish, Patrick took her.

They left at 12:30 and I’m writing this at 8:00. They just left the salon.

So why didn’t her just drop her off and get her later? With an estimate of a couple hours, and the salon about 30 minutes away, he figured as I would, to take work/reading/his computer with him and just wait. It’s in an interesting/funky area of Minneapolis, food is nearby, so there’s also places to explore and stay nourished.

Then the trap is set. Once the time estimated is past, and you’re not sure how much more time it will be and you’ve lost faith in estimates, you just wait and hope that it doesn’t take too long (which it did). You can’t be too demanding or ticked off at folks because they are doing their best. Alice probably got right in. So it’s not like they had to wait forever, then wait for the extension job. My guess is that Alice’s stylist is not terribly experienced with all this, or ran into some challenges she didn’t foresee, or is just doing a really, really great job.

Alice has to feel the pinch on the time because she’s supposed to be somewhere else this evening besides sitting in a hair salon. And I KNOW she gets the imposition on her dad. And with time and perspective, as it was for me with the cat in the wall incident, Alice will really understand and appreciate what Patrick did today.

But sometimes it takes becoming a parent to understand just how much our parents did show their love for us.

~ by modelmom on October 25, 2008.