The Biggest Ice Cream

I took my kids to Macy's (the local grocery store) for ice cream last night.  What we really wanted to do was go to a girls soccer game but after driving around for an hour and not finding it, we gave up.  They had five sizes of cone and while the responsible part of myself wanted to insist they get a reasonable size the part that belongs to my father took over and told them to get whatever size they wanted.  My father left when I was seven and to be honest was often about as absent as you could be, but when we did occasionally get together, he was the man of grand gestures.  I remember being seven and him buying me the biggest blizzard size they sell at DQ.  When we got home, I got out of the car, tripped on the curb and spilled out the entire thing.  He bundled me back in the car drove back to DQ and bought another gigantic blizzard.  There is a part of me that realizes an entire life of that would have turned me into a nightmare....but the occasional spoiling, well that just made me feel special.  So last night when I let my kids pick and my son asked for the gigantic cone, I silenced the part of myself that wanted to say, there is no possible way you can finish that, and I let him order.  I hope someday it is a memory he cherishes like I cherish my double blizzard night. By the way Gigi picked the daddy Kong.  When it came out she was mad it was bigger than the picture.