The Tearing Of The Bagels

Friday morning is bagel time with my daughter.  The ritual began soon after she was big enough to toddle.  She was once enthusiastic, even demanding, when it was still fresh and new to her.  Lately, she likes to go, but she often seems noncommittal.

Me, I don't want to give it up yet.  The capstone to my week, and my girl she is growing swiftly.

One aspect that took root early on was that the plain bagel she always requested had to be rendered into smaller bits, to fit her wee mouth.  It was done out of necessity when she was much smaller.  At first I had to cut the bagel into pieces, she insisted, and they had to be wedge shaped.  She would use them as tiny shovels to scoop cream cheese out of the container and into her mouth.  Later, I convinced her that tearing the bagel into bite-sized pieces was better (have you ever tried to saw apart a chewy bagel with a bendy plastic knife? Tedious and tiresome), and much to my delight she agreed.  So for the longest time I would tear the bagel into bites, and she would eat.

As with many of these things we do for our children because they can't do for themselves, there comes a time when we grow tired of performing these tasks.  That time usually occurs about the time the kids can manage these things for themselves.  Seat belt fastening and bagel tearing, yeah, I've hit limit.

So it was last Friday at the bagel shop.  Bagels arrived at the table and as usual before I could sink teeth into my hot, crispy, fresh bagel, Her Royal Cuteness asked me to tear up the bagel.  I was annoyed, more so than the situation warranted.  But I complied as I always do.  I did wonder when she was going to start doing this for herself.

I watched her as she ate.  She seemed content, scooping cream cheese like a boss, and pushing the fragments of the now sundered bagel around the napkin on the table.  She didn't eat that much.  I polished off my bagel and wondered at this progeny of mine, and why it has to be my hands that tear the bagel.

It became clear to me, when she looked up at me with those stained glass eyes of hers and a small grin on her face.  This thing we have, the trip we take every Friday morning for the ritual "Tearing Of The Bagel"...maybe it matters to her.  Maybe it isn't so much that she doesn't want to do it herself.  Maybe she thinks this time we share together is incomplete if Daddy doesn't make the big things small.  Because that's what daddies do.  They help make the big things small for their precious ones, and that is as it should be.  I look on that angel face and believe it to be true.

I wish I could tell her, explain so that she may understand, that I may make the big things small for her...but by her presence sharing this ritual, I am a bigger man.