For several years, while my daughters were growing up, we attended the Valentine’s Day daddy daughter dance hosted at our local fairgrounds. These were definitely events that the girls looked forward to, and we kept up the tradition for as long as they wanted to participate.
Each daddy daughter dance event was an opportunity to share special time wiyh my girls. We went out to dinner before the dance, usually allowing them to pick where we were going to go eat. Then we would have the dance which usually lasted about 3 hours or until their feet got tired. At the end of the night, we usually went to the local frozen yogurt spot, which in some years had sponsored the dance. Every dance had a photo booth opportunity along with flowers for the girls and drinks and snacks during the event.
The first few dances were just Jenna and myself and these were quite special just her and I bonding. We would get to the dance and she would look for any friends that she knew from Girl Scouts or school and we would find a spot to sit down later when we got tired. Typically we went straight to the photo shoot line because it could take 30 minutes to an hour to make it all the way through that process. Once we had the photos out of the way usually it was a quick snack break with cookies or cake and punch and then we would get to the dance floor. Jenna is a extrovert and wants to be the center of attention all the time and she showed that often at the daddy daughter dances.
It was always a fun event to go to but at the same time a little bit awkward for the dads. Dancing especially to younger songs was a little bit out of everybody’s comfort zone, but we all did it to make sure our daughters were happy. Several times during each dance they would have the chicken song or the electric slide, or whatever other song was super popular that year. As the years progressed, fewer and fewer of the girl’s friends and fathers would attend the dance and eventually they didn’t know any one who was going to the dance so they opted out all together. Also as they got older they started hanging with their friends more and leaving us dads sitting around the perimeter of the dance floor wondering where our daughters were and how many songs they would be on the floor before they came back to check in.
The first few years when Samantha also went with Jenna and I to the dance, we had to make some rules about who was gonna hold dad’s hands and get spun around. Samantha being a little bit less of an extrovert, wanted to dance and hold my hand most of the time, which by the end of the night made me super tired. After the first few years we did the group circle dance with everybody doing their own moves. When some of their good friends went to the dance, it would be a group of girls in the middle dancing with the dads around the edge all awkwardly dancing. It was all about the girls having fun and I’m so glad that we were able to go to so many events.
