The Hardest Part Is Letting Go Of Your Dreams

After I calm Ruby down I take her into her room to get dressed and while she's dressing herself I go into my room to do the same, finding Frank asleep in bed. I scoff in disgust before quickly dressing and going back into Ruby's room. Once we're ready we leave the apartment hand in hand, Ruby bringing Billy, insisting that he is an expert in picking fishies and we walk to the pet store. When we go in we pick out a new bowl and accessories before going to the tank full of colourful fish and a staff member catches the fish Ruby points out after consulting with Billy. I stand there chuckling at how cute she is and the staff member smiles at her and follows her instructions. Once he ties the bag off he carries it to the counter for me and I pay for it all. We load all the stuff into a box so I can carry it, the fish bag sitting inside the bowl and as we are leaving the store we walk past a cage full of birds. They start squawking at us and Ruby stops and presses her hand against the side of the cage, saying hello to them and one flies down and perches on the side of the cage next to her hand, leaning in and pecking at her fingers. She shrieks and pulls her hand away, giggling before putting it back and the bird does it again, making her giggle. "Can we get a birdy daddy?" She asks and I sigh, unable to resist her puppy eyes before saying "Maybe tomorrow baby ok?" She nods her head before waving at the cage and saying "Bye birdies" taking my free hand again and leaving the store.

When we get home we set up the new bowl, adding the new toys Ruby picked out before I let her pat the fish again before I tip them out into the bowl. Once we're done Ruby and I go back into the kitchen and I make sandwiches for us and we sit at the table eating. Once she's done Ruby slides out of her seat and walks around the table to me and climbs up into my lap, cuddling me and saying "I love you daddy." "I love you too Rubes" I tell her as I lean in to kiss the top of her head. We spend the afternoon drawing together at the table before I say "You wanna try out your paints baby girl?" and she nods. I go and get them, setting her up at the table as I hand her a paintbrush and I grab one for myself, both of us leaning over her giant scrap book and painting. Once we're done I tear the page out and hang it up to dry and I tear another page out and show Ruby how to make a butterfly by painting one side in the shape we want and folding the page in half so it transfers to the other side. She stares at me amazed and says "Wow daddy" before making one of her own. The next page we make paint hand prints and Ruby giggles as she squishes the paint with her hands, having the time of her life. Once we're done I hang up all the pictures to dry and we wash our hands before settling back at the table and I grab some pencils and teach Ruby how to write her name. She picks it up very quickly and by the time Frank drags himself out of bed after sleeping off his bender from the night before she can almost do it herself. "Look daddy" she chirps out, waiting until Frank is standing beside her and she writes her name on the paper beside all the other attempts we've done. "Wow baby that's so good, you're very smart. Did daddy teach you that?" And she nods her head. "Daddy's very smart too isn't he?" He adds and Ruby says "Yeah" smiling up at me. I smile back, looking at her, not Frank and Ruby slides out of her chair saying "Daddy come see our paints" taking his hand and leading him into the laundry where I hung them all to dry. While they're gone I clean up the mess we made and when they come back Frank is telling her how great the paintings are. "Daddy can we go to the park?" Ruby asks and I look out the window, seeing the sun starting to go down and I say "It's starting to get dark Rubes but we'll go tomorrow I promise." Ruby pouts and I chuckle before saying "How about we make cookies instead?" And her little face lights up. "Yay" she screams, jumping around before running over and grabbing my hand, pulling me into the pantry. Once we have all the ingredients I pull a chair over to the bench so Ruby can stand on it and we make cookie dough while Frank watches us from his seat at the table. I hand Ruby an extra wooden spoon and she helps me stir in the chocolate chips before I put spoonfuls onto the baking tray and put them in the oven. Ruby jumps down off her chair and walks towards the oven and I say "Make sure you don't touch Rubes, it's very hot." "Ok daddy" she says back before kneeling on the floor and watching them cook through the door. I start tidying up while they cook and when the timer dings Ruby stands up and jumps around saying "Ready daddy." I tell her to step back before opening the door and reaching in with an oven mitt to pull them out, sitting them on the sink to cool down.

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