Dinner in the City with my Teen

As everyone knows teenagers are all intelligent, experienced beyond their years and there is not much that you can tell them for which they don’t already know the answer. If you know one just ask them. Assuming you can pry them away from their cell phone or IPod. Those are permanently attached to their ears. It is with amazement and awe when they even give you a hint at being excited beyond something that deals with their friends or the latest, who is dating who. That is why it was such a fun treat to take my daughter to SF last night for dinner.

I picked her up after work, she was already ready and we drove down to Pac Heights where my girlfriend has an apartment. She lives in the city and has intimate knowledge of where we can hang out and have a great, even if expensive meal. Our reservations were not until 8:30 so we walked around for a little while and you could see my daughter’s eyes light up, darting back and forth taking in the experience. She became enamored with hair color since we had seen somebody with purple hair as we drove around looking for a parking space. It was funny to hear her comment on everyone’s style as she glanced from her phone to the outside world. While she did not express her excitement directly you could tell how enlightening it was by her inability to stop talking. She was jumping from one subject to the next in an endless flow of hyper statements.

It was wonderful to see her so worked up. When we sat down to dinner we ordered a pitcher of Sangria and when the waiter poured three glasses you could see a little glint in her eye as she looked at me then at my girlfriend and then back at me again. I was fine with her having a glass (she only had a few sips since she didn’t care for it) and it made her feel confident and part of the grown up crowd to be treated as an equal. It is amazing how fast she is growing up, becoming a young lady. Less than a year away and she will be driving and God only knows what I will do then. She is already vying for a Jeep which is her favorite car in the world and listing out all the reasons she feels that she is due the vehicle as she builds her case.

Dinner was nice and we stopped for some ice cream on the walk back to the apartment. Seemed like a perfect evening. The only negative is when my daughter was given the couch to sleep on. She is a little spoiled as she recoiled from the thought of retiring in a place so beneath her. I remember when I was growing up and slept on the floor on many occasions and it never seemed to bother me. In the end she managed fine and spent a couple of hours before bed watching TV and yes as you might guess texting on her cell.

It isn’t that often I get to spend time with only one child. Having three is great but you do lose some of that one on one experience that is needed from time to time. She commented on the drive home in the morning about how much fun she had. It was probably as much fun for me as it was for her. We will not have too many more of these times as she continues to drift further and further away into her own life experiences. I will miss her but I am also so proud to watch her flourish. She has come a long way in the past few months and she continues to grow in strength and maturity.

I do love her so much despite her being a teenager.