My dad is cooler than your dad for a multitude of reasons, but one of them is that he is comprised of a mostly unending supply of thoughtfulness and generosity and patience. My mom and I are still doing our Friday date nights, which sticks my dad in charge of watching the super! hyper! puppy! at the end of a long week.

But every Friday, he stops down at just the right moment, after we've finished our Panera dinners, finished our ice cream, and laughed and cried our way through three episodes of Gilmore Girls. As he hunches over the water cooler to fill his glass, he asks us if he can get us anything hot to drink.

"Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?"

My mom bends her hands to indicate a T or C, depending on her mood, and I fumble to find a way to make an H with one hand and a C with the other. Inevitably failing, I shout out, "Hot chocolate, please!"

And every week, my dad makes my mom's drink first because he loves her the mostest. Then he gets out the gourmet hot chocolate from the pantry — the gourmet hot chocolate he bought specifically for me because he loves me a lot — and he heats up the milk and makes hot chocolate "the fancy way." He offers me a sip to test the temperature and the level of chocolatosity. After everything is right, he goes the extra mile and adds whipped cream and chocolate syrup to the top, just to make it special.

Thanks, Daddy. I love you, too.