Written by The Daddy
Most of the dances I’ve attended, I’ve gone with the same date, and I didn’t think that I would enjoy going to an event like that with anyone but her. Whenever Aly and I get dressed up to go out together I always have this warm, comfortable feeling of being in the right place with the right woman, and a feeling of pride that someone so beautiful and fun would want to be there with me. The old nerves about dancing or fumbling over flirting have faded and been replaced by familiar dance patterns we learned together, and the comfort of more than a decade and a half of having her hand in mine.
So with that being said, it was surprising to me how excited I was to prepare for Mia’s first dance. The father daughter dance sponsored by her school was, in my mind, just something this Christian school would give a token effort to. I figured that it would be more stiff and less fun than the types of dances I had attended when I was growing up (especially since it was just for K-8 at a Christian school…). Regardless, I was excited for Mia to have the opportunity to do something fun through her school, and excited that I got to be part of it.
I definitely did not give the school and the event planners enough credit! From the moment we were let in the doors, she got to pick out a custom made flower crown, and there was a full professional photographers booth (that Aly had pre-paid and prepared us for ahead of time), with a space for the dads to stand in line, and tables full of different crafting station for the girls to do something fun while waiting. We decided to do that before we got too sweaty dancing. Mia drew a picture with some of her friends, and crafted a custom made bookmark with pressed flowers. After the picture, it was into the ballroom.
The gym had been fully converted to the extent that I did not even recognize the room. 3 of the walls had curtains put up to create the illusion of a dedicated dance floor, there were strings of lights stretched overhead all the way across the gym, there were full disco lights and the DJ was playing fantastic (age appropriate!) dance music! There were tables set up with cookies and snacks and different drinks, and benches for resting. The setting was incredible, and I could tell that Mia was amazed at the conversion of the room. She could not stand still for a second, zipping all over the room every time she saw a familiar face, I could barely keep up with her!
The DJ mixed in fun activities with the normal music, which encouraged people to stay out on the dance floor for more than just dancing. There were Congo lines, line dancing, limbo circles, even a soul train (where people dance down the center of two lines of people while being cheered). These activities did a great job of keeping the dance lively and as many people out on the floor as possible.
The majority of the first portion of the dance I was just trying to keep up with Mia as she found all her friends and spent a few minutes dancing, and then zipped off again to see someone else. It was wonderful to see how friendly everyone was with her, and it made me happy that she had so many friends. At first I was nervous that these people would not be welcoming to her, but my worries eased a little bit as each new interaction showed that they were all familiar with her and her tendencies to be a social butterfly, jumping to and from different friend groups all over the floor.
Once she had greeted all her friends and gone through the limbo line with a few different groups of girls, she then gravitated back towards spending time with me, and I experienced that same sense of comfort and contentment that I always feel being around her mother. If anything, my heart was even more full because there was also pride for the beautiful, wonderful person she is becoming. I showed her all the line dances I knew, and I picked her up and spun her around every chance I got, much the same way that I had done for her mother when we were 18 at her homecoming. It was an amazing time, and I can’t wait for the next dance.
Mothering Millie 