My three-year-old girl Chelsea, calls me ‘Tony’, and although I have seen a few folks frown at this overt familiarity, it makes me happy. And that’s all that counts between a father and a daughter, or a parent and a child. I didn’t even know it was ‘Father’s Day’ last Sunday until I saw it in the papers. Because for a dad, every day is Father’s Day, or at least it should be. So today I’ll write about being a dad. It is true what they say, kids do say the funniest things. I bought Chelsea a football earlier on in the month, seeing as the World Cup is coming up. By last Sunday, she had lost the football. “Baby, wapi  mpira?” I asked her.

 

“The devil took ball,” she said, and I roared with laughter. Later, a Maa estate watchman complete with shuka, red ochre hair and rungu returned the football. “Tony,” Chelsea cried excitedly, “ndio huyu shetani alichukua ball yangu.” Apparently, she had related the man’s appearance to the crimson imps she has seen in cartoons.

 

But she does not like cartoons much, she likes football, ever since she made the connection she is named after Chelsea FC (okay, so what if I’m a little bit of a soccer nut)? I was thrilled she still recognises ‘Dogba’ on TV (Drogba, not Pogba), Raila (‘Tony, ndio huyo Rao!’) and mostly ‘Mobama.’ (Barrack Obama, whose 2012 re-election tiny T-shirt I got her for her birthday when she was one. I believe small people should be surrounded by images of great people). Being a father is being pleased at the school educational clinic to hear that one’s little lass, the smallest in the class, is the least shy, saying ‘teacher, teacher’ to write on the blackboard. Chelsea likes school, shouting at anyone who will listen in the morning, “Me I’m going chi-kool, sawa?” But being a father is also delighting in that soft sleeping innocence of one’s little child after you have taken them to bed after supper. And, although I know this is cliché, read them a bedtime night story. Like a lot of men about their children, I, of course, hope my little lass follows in my footsteps, and whatever else she does, is at the very least, a part time writer (but not in the belligerent manner of Beryl Itindi, my noisy upstairs neighbour from Kamayole.

 

She took off to shags last week, and I sneaked into her apartment that Saturday, and I tell you, the sight was not pretty. Uchafu nayo! I must warn the caretaker and landlady).

 

Chelsea likes doing homework so I can applaud her afterwards. She is full of stories from her kindergarten about her nemesis Nthenya, and good friend Torres (which sane Chelsea FC fan would name their son after that lousy Spanish striker)? Today, as in the day I wrote this, when I dropped her off at school as usual on a boda boda scooter, she looked at me searchingly and said ‘Tony usiende mbali!’ How on earth had the little lass sensed her dad was off on a far off trip that would take the better part of a month? Appreciate your ‘little ones’ this Saturday, friend. They are what we have.

Photo:  www.kontrolmag.com