It should’ve been California!

Marcel gets what she wants.

Of course, a lot of this happens because people line up to give her things. Seriously. There’s competition to spoil her.

A lot of this happens because everyone wants to be on her good side. As my mother explained when she directed my dad to buckle a defiant Marcel into her car seat, “I’m not gonna be the bad guy.”

But Marcel isn’t a passive player in this game. She’s an active player, too. She will even manipulate you. This past week, when she wanted some crackers, is a prime example.

Apparently, my wife has been cracking down on Marcel’s cracker intake. So, of course, Marcel came to me to get her cracker fix. I was feeling lazy–too lazy even to spoil–so I suggested she ask her mother.

Her eyes immediately grew big, she waved her arms wildly and screamed,

“Nooooooooo Mommy!”

Once she was sure that I wasn’t going to move, her head went on a swivel to make sure my wife hadn’t come into the room or was even in earshot. Satisfied that the coast was clear, she leaned in, looked me dead in the eyes, then whispered menacingly.

“You do it.”

She’s too cute to hate the player, though. I can only hate the game.

Marcel likes to get involved.

If she sees me at the computer, she climbs into my lap so that she can look at the screen and grab the mouse. If I go outside, Marcel starts looking for her coat so that she can tag along. If I start to cook a meal, Marcel pulls a chair up to the counter so she can participate.

Tonight, she pulled that chair up a little early. I wasn’t processing ingredients, yet. I was just washing the necessary pots and pans. That was fine with Marcel, though. She wanted to help washing pots and pans, too!

I told you. She likes to get involved.

After quite a bit of pestering–my wife and I were hungry and wanted to move quickly–I relented and let Marcel help scrub a pan. Shockingly, the not-yet-3 y.o. was pretty good at it.

She wasn’t just trying to splash water or blow bubbles. Marcel was scrubbing! So much so that I asked her if she’d be just as interested when she was 13 y.o.

At first, she ignored me. So I repeated myself. My wife wanted to make sure she had accurately heard what I said, so I repeated myself again. My wife, very interested in the answer for obvious reasons, even waddled her pregnant self over to the counter to hear Marcel’s response. Still, Marcel ignored us. So we waited longer.

Eventually, Marcel relented and looked up at us. “Will you promise to do this when you’re 13,” I queried, yet again. Marcel blinked a non answer and went back to her scrubbing.

And we went back to worrying about the teen years.

Marcel had plain M&Ms for dinner on Thursday.

She didn’t just have plain M&Ms. She also had turkey, peas and carrots. In fact, she had the peas and carrots because she just had to have the M&Ms. She wouldn’t wait for desert, though. She had to have a M&M in exchange for every forkful of veggies. That was the deal. Because she eventually ate all of her veggies, it was a very good deal to me.

I can hear my parents groan, now.

Dad–”GP” to Marcel–is a good soldier. In his estimation, the work itself is the glory. Anything extra is like a tip. It’s something you get wholly at the discretion, and graciousness, of the beneficiary of your labor. Thus, under GPs rules, Marcel should’ve just ate those peas and carrots.

My mother isn’t such the good soldier. She’s more like a mercenary. She believes in compensation, the more ample the better. She doesn’t, however, believe in M&Ms for dinner. She believes in a healthy meal.

At my core, I am much more like my father on this point. I have, however, come to learn the value of negotiation. Especially since I’ve the financial obligations of a husband and father. Now, I can’t afford to sacrifice all for the good of the community. Now, I need the community to sacrifice a little for me. Thus, my mother has had her impact on me, too.

Still, she wouldn’t be too thrilled about Marcel’s diet. But, I think, my parents should both be thrilled about her diet. Marcel did eat all of her veggies. And she is digesting how to negotiate in this tough world, as well.

Whenever I embark on an endeavor important to me, I fantasize that I will play it out in glorious fashion.

We will not only win the Little League championship, I would dream, but I will hit a home run in the effort. I will not only write a screenplay, I’d think, but it will sell $400 million worth of movie tickets worldwide and launch my fabulous Hollywood career. I can’t help it. I even start spending my lottery winnings whenever the Powerball jackpot goes over $100 million. In my head, of course.

Becoming a parent was no different. In Marcel’s case, my dream was that her first words would be “Yes”.

What I didn’t want were her first words to be “No.” I felt that if her first words were “No” then that would mean that I had only ever told her “No.” Instead, I wanted to be the kind of parent that told his child “Yes.”

I wanted to be the kind of parent who not only said, “Yes, you can have that cookie,” but also the kind of parent that said, “Yes, you can read that book; Yes, you can explore that garden; Yes, you can climb that mountain,” and in so doing, teach her that the world really is her oyster and that everything in it is her pearl and, in her possession, that pearl will gleam like it had never gleamed before.

Of course, it took her awhile to get around to saying “Yes.”

But last night, we sat down to watch recording artist Will.i.am’s video mash-up of Barack Obama’s speech after the 2008 New Hampshire primary election for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

Jesse Dylan’s video features music written by Will.i.am set to the words of that speech. The music is performed by other recording artist who are white and black and old and young. The words are sung or spoken by Will.i.am and a variety of other black, white, Latino and Asian celebrities of the music, television and fashion worlds. They’re performances are intercut with video of Obama speaking on that January day in New England. Together, the effort is nothing short of moving. The video concludes, with it’s chorus, in soaring fashion. “Yes. We. Can.”

Since she is just short of three years old, it never occurred to me in the week since the video’s release to screen it for Marcel. But as I sat to watch it at my home computer for the upteenth time, Marcel joined me. Maybe she wasn’t drawn by the music. Perhaps, she just wanted to sit in Daddy’s lap for a spell. Maybe she really wanted to videocam with my parents. However, the video quickly captured her attention. She insisted that we watch it three times. Then we went downstairs and told Mommy what we learned.

“Yes, we can.”

And, thus, a daddy’s dream came true.

Last Sunday morning, Marcel climbed up the stairs to visit me in the home office with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Apparently, she couldn’t find her pacifier.

At 2.75 years old, I have finally reached the point that my wife had reached some time ago; It’s time to ditch the pasie. Initially, I tried some old-time, schoolyard shame and ridicule to break the habit. Usually, that went something like, “You don’t need no pasie”, “You’re too big to want a pasie”, or “Give me that pasie!”

Marcel, however, completely ignored all of it. Exasperated , I switched to a new tactic on Sunday morning. I tried pity.

I figured that if Marcel thinks it’ll work on me, then maybe that’s because she’s particularly sensitive to pity. “I don’t like to see someone hurting,” I imagined her thinking, “so maybe they won’t want to see me hurting, either, and if I act like it hurts me not to have my pasie, then maybe they’ll find one for me, and do so quickly.”

Thus inspired, I wailed, gnashed my teeth and even blubbered, “I can’t take you wanting the pasie, anymore! You don’t need that pasie! Stop asking me for the pasie. I can’t take it!”

Marcel blinked at my display. Then she looked me dead in the eye and, with nary a stutter, weep or gnashed tooth, she coldly responded to my pitiful self.

“Take it.“

We got up to find her pasie.