Conversations with Charlotte #267--Parenting Fail

It's a task with built-in excuses, but I am not going to use them.  This parenting fail is 100% on my shoulders and the guilt runs through my veins.  Apologies after a failure like this are meaningless, yet to me, feel necessary.  But I won't apologize.  I won't make excuses.  I will instead accept my failure as a father and will resolve to try harder.  That is all I can do.

But it is just so hard to raise a Texan in Minnesota.

Last night Charlotte and I were drawing on the sidewalk in the front yard as we are wont to do.  I have this vision of using the front porch and cold beer as a way to make our block one giant Kumbayah community.  But the specifics behind that vision is for another discussion or blog entry.  I will say this: I just rolled out my plan for "National Night Out Every Night" last week and Emily agrees that the early returns of this soft opening have exceeded expectations.  The hard opening won't be for another month or so.

So anyway, Charlotte and I were drawing on the sidewalk.  Typically she will ask me to draw something.  And then when I draw it, she will color it in.  So far, so good.  But here is where it got ugly.  She asked me to draw a Boe Boe Head (a bunch of characters I made up when I was a kid... in Texas), a zebra (a horse with stripes, so it's kind of Texan), a baby in a crib (they have those in Texas) and then the unspeakable happened.

Charlotte: Draw a bridge over the Mississippi River.

Me: How about the I-35 bridge over the Red River?

Charlotte: No.  I want a Lake Street Bridge.

Me: Or maybe I could draw a star or a spur.  Or the Olmos Dam.   It's like a bridge.  Or not like one.

Charlotte: No.  Daddy draw a Lake Street Bridge.

No apologies.  No excuses.  But this girl is sure acting like a Minnesotan.