Went on my second date with my daughter last night and it went well again. So as it stands now, I am batting 1000, but of course am expecting the horribly bad date at some point in the future. Hopefully not until she is 13 and I have become used to her hating me anyway.

It’s surprisingly simple to do and can be mind expanding for the kid without the pomp and circumstance of things like museums and shows and such.  I think that there is so much pressure put on parents (at least smarter ones) to educate their kids every second, that most parents fail miserably at actually providing the most important aspect of education, experience. Just walking around and looking at stuff and talking about it, can be more educating than the best school day sometimes.

We went to a local shopping area and walked around looking in windows of most, and going into a handful. We looked at clothes in the windows. Walked past a Coach Leather store and Ashley proclaims, “when I’m a mommy, I want to buy purses there”.

Seriously, the expensive gene has got to be genetic. My wife always wants the most expensive thing, without knowing pricing. Put two of the exact same pillows in front of her, she will pick the one that has the higher price.

We looked at some jewelry, which she was interested in silver necklaces. We went into Z-Gallery and looked at the stuff. Mirrors were a good hit, until the beds… She had to lay on every single bed in the joint. And then started bopping to the music on one of them.

Chillin on a couch, telling a story about how the cars (disney cars) were playing with the dinosaurs until the dinosaurs stole all their oil.

Towards the end of walking around, we visited Teavana which I think you can gather sells tea and tea related paraphernalia. It’s like a freakin headshop for tea nerds, which I am an amateur one of. We tried some of the teas that they had brewed up, looked at the teaware, checked out the blooming teas they had on display, and then tasted the last tea. The last one was blueberry/strawberry, and as you can imagine the response was “I WANT THAT”. So I bought her some loose tea, and will help her make it at home for the next few days until she gets sick of it inevitably.

A little playing on some amphitheater-like steps watching the fountain.

Then we were off to have sushi. I wanted to expose her to it now. It’s about when I got exposed by my parents, so why not? We ate a RA in Scottsdale, and sat at the sushi bar. Mostly because I thought she would find it cool to watch them make the sushi. Wrong. She could have given 2 shits about it. But the chopsticks were a hit.

Deciding how to expose her to sushi was a multiday discussion in my own head. She only ever eats carbs normally, so my concern was that if I got nigeri she would just pull of the fish and eat the rice. A roll is kind of hard for a small mouth to eat. So, sashimi it is! (yellowtail, tuna, salmon)

Look at the pro! She is working those chopsticks like a Boss! A woman a few seats away couldn’t stop staring. I think she was a bit freaked out. Though might have been my awesome good looks were making her hot and bothered. Her favorite was salmon sashimi, though she ate two pieces of tuna and yellowtail as well as 4 of the salmon. The most I think I have ever seen her eat of something that didn’t have sugar in it.

Success! She is smiling. Go dad!

Somebody is sweepy. Yes there is a paci in her mouth and she’s 4. Unless you’re her doctor and we have lied to you about it, move on, nothing to see here.

Overall, some small tiffs, a little crankiness, a lot of giggling, singing and 1 armed swinging which cracked up the valet guy and freaked out the grandmas standing around. Definitely a win.

I hope to keep this up, every two weeks and post each time, good or bad. Maybe I will make it a few years, maybe until college. Probably not without gaps, but I figure if it is made a habit, both of us will miss it and feel weird without it. Kind of like a seatbelt or helmet if you have never been without those.