It’s Morning in American, Again

As we sat down to breakfast on the first morning of my parents visit to celebrate the inauguration of our next president, Marcel directed the discussion.  Specifically, she directed everyone to tell a story.

She was first and, not surprisingly, her story was all about her.

My wife’s story was next.  Her story wasn’t about Marcel.  I could tell from Marcel’s facial expression that that wasn’t what was wanted so, when my turn came, I made up a beautiful story about my wonderful daughter.

My father was after me.  He could also tell that he was supposed to talk about Marcel.  He couldn’t quite bring himself to full complaince with the unsaid directive, though, so he started a satirical tale about my oldest child.

“Once upon a time there was camera…”

Marcel knew what was up, though, and immdiately cut him off with a curt, “Next!”

My mother, however, had no intention of letting down one of hers.

“Once upon a time, there was this beautiful grand-daughter…”

Marcel, not needing explicit explanation that the grand-daughter being described was her and not one of the two other grand-daughters, beamed like the morning sun!

 

Vacation Edition

I’m writing this blog to catalogue the history of my life in my daughters’ world so I don’t lose and forget any of our wonderful memories. During vacations, however, we’re working too hard developing memories to find time to get to a computer and write them down. In those instances, I’ll fill one post with multiple entries. This is one of those instances.

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8/16/2008:

So maybe I was a little premature in announcing a change in Tristan’s sleep patterns. She woke up several times a night, in the middle of the night, every night, last week. Worse, my wife continues her practice of always waking me up along with her and Tristan.

Specifically, she asks me to change Tristan’s diaper while she runs off for a little potty time herself, even if all Tristan wants to do is to nurse. I mean, if diaper changing won’t stop the crying, why do I have to be miserable along with everyone, too? One night, however, Tristan didn’t want to feed. She really just needed a diaper change.

Or maybe something else was happening.

Tristan’s crying didn’t abate when I removed the dirty diaper, as it usually does when she’s only complaining about a dirty diaper. And, as I pulled out the cold wipe, I fully expected her crying to intensify when I slathered it across her bottom. Instead, she quieted precipitously.

By this point, she had turned to look at the lamp, which bathed her face in a warm glow. And as I finished the job and taped the fasteners, her eyes closed, her hand, previously raised in a clinched fist, slowly fell and a smile–a BIG smile–spread across her face.

And a little misery was a small price to pay to see that.

8/23/2008:

When I was growing up, my Dad was very much involved in my life.  He read me the Bible through Exodus and taught me Amazing Grace.  He also taught me Chess, Checkers, Backgammon and Monopoly. And when it came to football, baseball, basketball and, even, soccer, he never missed a home game.

He’s a grandparent (“GP”) now, though, and he expects to only have the easy parts.  So he was taken aback when Marcel ordered him to get in line.  Even though I was feeding Tristan a bottle, I tried to save him, and jumped in line behind Marcel but she insisted that all of us–my Mom, my wife and GP–get in line behind her, too.  Defeated, my Dad complied.

We marched out of the den, through the library, the dining room, the kitchen and then all of the way to nursery.  In the nursery, there’s an oval area rug where she sat down, Native American-style, and ordered us to do the same, taken my Dad by surprise, again.  Again, nursing Tristan and all, I tried to take the weight and sit down for the group but, again, Marcel insisted.  Defeated, my Dad compromised and sat on her bed.

As soon as everyone was seated, Marcel started in with the songs.  We sang several rounds of an incomplete “A, B, Cs”. Then we played instruments. Tristan and I had a pillow masquerading as a basketball which Marcel informed the group was a guitar.  My wife, Grandma and GP had “instruments”, as well.  When we were done, Marcel instructed us to put the instruments behind us (surely so we wouldn’t be distracted during the next activity), then we sang new songs.

It became clear to us that Marcel was mimicking her daily experience at fancy daycare.  This revelation filled me with comfort and gratitude that my daughter was being so well nurtured and inspired by the people to whom I entrust her.  This revelation filled my father with something else, altogether: It filled him with a question.

“When do we take a nap?”