Tiny Dancer

From early on, my wife has called Marcel “Tiny Dancer.”  I believe it’s inspired by the title of the Elton John song, but not the lyrics.  Frankly, I don’t remember what Marcel did to invoke the reference.  But it is apt.

Still it’s hard to make that claim, sometimes.  There’s a tinier person in the house, for one thing.   For another thing, Marcel’s vocabulary and maturity often make it easy to forget that she’s still just a four year-old little girl.  Size and capacity, however, are the only hindrance to the claim, because she absolutely loves dancing.

The first hint was her enthusiasm for the movement class at her fancy daycare.  Over a year ago, she’d come home doing these startling things, like throwing her hands over her head then falling to the floor, where’d she’d push herself in semi-circle.  Later, the yoga tutor that the school brought in for the kids offered that Marcel was her most focused student.

We took those cues–and Marcel less enthusiastic embrace of her soccer classes–to enroll her in ballet.  She loves ballet.  We never have any trouble getting her out of bed to go to ballet.

The funniest episode, however, involved rock music.

Sometimes, we gather in the kitchen or office and listen to the iPod or iTunes.  One evening, Nelly Furtado’s imminently danceable tunes started blasting.  Marcel wiggled and whirled accross the kitchen floor, as the rest of tried to catch up.  She left us in the dust, however, with one particular move.

She climbed up on the chair, wiggled, looked over her shoulder and, just after flashing a mischievous smile , threw her nose up with all the haughtiness of royalty, turned away and wiggled to the beat some more.   I don’t think any of us held our composure in the wake of THAT.

To be honest, the implications of her Madonna-like command of a rock performance are a little scary, but in a tiny dancer, it’s just joy.

 

Milestones

Sometime over the last couple of weeks, Marcel began reaching the light switch without getting on a stool or chair.  Just prior to that, Marcel learned to turn door knobs.

Meanwhile, Tristan combined two skills–turning over and putting something in her mouth–when she rolled to her side, pulled her pacifier into her mouth and went to sleep.

The biggest development on the new achievements scale, however, was when Marcel peed in her bed.

This had never happened before because, frankly, my wife and I were conscientious about putting Marcel in pull-ups at bedtime.  This night, however, we weren’t conscientious.

The next morning, Marcel jumped into our bed and got under the covers.  Everything was unusual about this.

Normally, if she wakes up before us, she just calls for us to come get her out of bed.  If she does come into our room, she usually declines getting into bed and, instead, urges us to take her downstairs for chocolate milk and television.  On very rare occasions, she’ll get into bed with us, and she did just that this time.

And when she did, I noticed that her pajama pants did not match her pajama top.

Mismatch pajamas aren’t just rare in our household.  They are nonexistent.  My wife is a stickler for things like that, so when Marcel hopped into bed with mismatch pajamas, not only did my antenna shoot up, but my mouth shot open.

“Marcel,” I queried, “what happened to your pajamas?”

“I changed them,” she responded.  She refused, however, to explain why.  She just got into our bed as happy as could be.  Like mismatch pajamas, Marcel changing her bottoms is nonexistent.

Even as a newborn, Marcel never much minded dirty diapers.  I distinctly remember telling our favorite Argentinian musician how grateful I was for that trait, only to have him educate me on the pitfalls of rarely-changed, over-full diapers.  Warnings notwithstanding, Marcel and I came to learn the consequences of delayed diaper changes the hard way, including Marcel becoming comfortable with wet and soiled underwear…while sitting on the sofa.

So to hear say that she changed herself, unprompted, raised all kind of alarms bells.  I got out of bed to check on her room.  When I entered her room, I found an even more startling thing:  I found a made bed.

Now, my wife is about as anal about makign the bed as she is about storing pajamas in matching sets, but I never seen her teach Marcel how to make a bed and never seen Marcel actually care about making a bed.  I mean, she’ll tell that it’s her job to make the chocolate milk, cook the dinner or plant the flowers.  She does not, however, tell you that it’s her job to make the bed.  But that morning, it was.

And it was my job to unmake it.

When I pulled back the covers, my suspicions were confirmed.  The tell-tale wet spot revealed that Marcel had peed in the bed.  But far from being upset, I was grateful.  Marcel was finally ashamed of messing herself.  And, for the next couple of days, Marcel insisted on going to the potty before the “rain and mud” came.

We’re told we aren’t supposed to shame our children into potty training.  I’m not sure we could if we were allowed.  (She’s way too cute to punish, really.)  But, given the results, I was sure glad Marcel was willing to take up the cudgel.

 

New Dog’s New Tricks

Sometimes, Tristan creates a vacuum in her milk bottle, which stops the flow of milk.  I suppose every baby does it.  Marcel did it, but I learned to regularly pull the bottle away so as keep the flow steady and the cries at bay.  By the time Tristan arrived, however, I must’ve forgotten the trick because she regularly creates vacuums.  Amazingly, Tristan figured out the answer to the problem all on her own.

Often while I’m daydreaming my way through Tristan’s feeding, or whatever the hell it is I’m doing, Tristan realizes that the milk has stopped flowing.  Any other baby would start crying but fail to recognize that, just by opening their mouth, they have let air into the bottle which, in turn, allows the milk to flow again, thus making further cries unnecessary.

Of course, any baby would make this mistake.  After all, they’re just a baby!  Apparently, though, Tristan isn’t just a baby because Tristan doesn’t cry.

Instead, when the vacuum occurs and the flow dries up, Tristan starts pushing at my fingers.  She’s trying to push the bottle in my hand out of her mouth.  She’s not strong enough to actually move my hand, of course, but she is strong enough to get my attention.  When she starts pushing, I pull the bottle away, we wait for the telltale bubbles and hiss to stop and, when it does, she opens her mouth and I pop the bottle back in.

Obviously, she could achieve the same affect just by opening her mouth but, given her age, her way is mighty impressive to me.

 

You Are My Sweetheart

Several pre-Tristan months ago, Marcel sang to me.  But she wasn’t trying to be affectionate.  She was trying to be mischievous.

I had wanted her to finish dinner with us.  She, however, wanted to watch television. She tried to slip away from the table but I grabbed her.  I had intended to spoon feed her, which is sometimes the only way I can get her to eat her meals.  She, however, tried to distract me. She grabbed my head, looked deep into my eyes and, with a slight smirk, sang…

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

This caught me off gaurd.  It’s a beautiful sentiment–the kind of sentiment that a father dreams of hearing from his daughter–but, given the circumstances, not a sentiment at all expected.  Moreover, I had never heard that song sung by anybody before, much less Marcel.

I think Marcel suddenly realized that she liked it as much as I did, though, because she sang it, again.

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

I needed to know from where this came.  I tried to use my eyes to ask the question by looking into Marcel’s.  She, however, became embarassed by the emotion and evaded my gaze by fiddling with a button on my shirt.  When I pressed and angled to find eye contact, anyway, she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me close.  She didn’t totally let go of the sentiment, though.  In fact, she sang it again.  In my ear.

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

I was thrilled by this song, and confused by it, too, because I didn’t know where it was coming from and agitated by it, as well, because the confusion it caused interfered with my joy.  I had to know why I was so lucky, so I queried my wife. She, however, was just as confused as I was.  Meanwhile, Marcel became frustrated and hit me on my chest then sang, again.

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

Maybe she became frustrated because she thought I was ignoring her song to talk with her mother.  In that moment, however, I felt that Marcel was waiting a beat between verses so that I could respond with my song, and had only become frustrated because I wasn’t chiming in.  But this was just a feeling and only hesitantly, for fear of breaking the spell, did I echo my big girl.

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

And she responded.

“You’re my sweet-heart.”

Then, it got more amazing.  Soon, she didn’t wait a beat.  Instead, she kept singing.  Only now, her voice sang along with my voice and my voice sang along with hers.

“You’re my sweet-heart/You’re my sweet-heart.”

Soon our common verse and common metric also became a common note and common tone.

“You’re my sweet-heart/You’re my sweet-heart.”

“You’re my sweet-heart/You’re my sweet-heart.”

“You’re my sweet-heart/You’re my sweet-heart.”

Then, as magically as it began, it crescendoed.

“You’re my sweeeeeeeeeet-heaaaaaaaaaaaaaaart!”

After a beat, Marcel let go of my neck and turned to sit in my lap.  I tried to hold her close but she calmly wriggled free and walked into the tv room.

 

First Parent/Teacher Conference

On Wednesday, my wife and I went to our first ever Parent/Teacher conference as parents. (I was so excited that I mistakenly called my wife on Tuesday afternoon to scold her for not yet picking me up and risking our tardiness. Thankfully, she thought that that was cute.)

The point of this conference wasn’t so much to tell us about Marcel’s progress as it was to review the rules and procedures with the parents. Of course, I was only there to hear about my child. Realizing that Fancy Day Care had another agenda, I started looking for clues where I could find them. Those clues where apparent immediately.

In the stairway to Marcel’s classroom, was a billboard entitled, “All About Me.” On it were polaroids of Marcel and her classmates alternately placing their shoeless and sockless feet in two buckets–one filled with ice and the other filled with warm water.

In the picture with Marcel, her back was to the photographer. Worse, she was at the back of the group of children that stood in front of the bucket in this picture. Still, she was at the center of the picture and her quiet focus dominated the scene. Needless to say, I was very proud that she found a way to turn last place into first place.

The pride grew as I found four Marcel artworks in her classroom. Judging by the dates on the artwork, her latest creation was a collage of fall foilage. I know I’m “Dad” but, frankly, it’s beautiful. All of the leaves and seed pods were the same brown. There differences lied in their shapes and textures. And their beauty lied in their arrangement. And that beauty was all Marcel’s doing. In particular, I liked how she placed the smallest seed pods on the largest leaf.

Marcel also worked with roller colors. I’m not really sure what that is, but the effect is similar to finger painting. The first one (or at least the one I assume is the first one), was essentially just one color.

By her second work (or at least the one I assume is her second work), she had obviously learned how to use an explosion of colors. I’d like to think it was the inspiration for “Fall Foilage.” Then again, maybe she just learned to be a little more aggressive about getting to those roller colors.

My favorite, however, by far, is entitled “Mommy“. Beautifully, it features long, brown, wispy lines, just like my wife’s hair. Hilariously, the long, brown, wispy lines emanate from a large pointy, proboscis, just like my wife’s nose. I wondered what inspired Marcel?

Either way, “Mommy” is perfect.

And it was the largest, most prominently-placed student artwork in the class.

 

Talent

When Marcel was just a ghostly figure on a sonogram, I used to joke that I only wanted her born “beautiful, talented and smart.” One friend, correcting me, told me that she only “hoped for ten fingers and ten toes.” My response to that was that I’d give “a finger or toe” for “beautiful, talented and smart” because if you have all that, then nine fingers or nine toes isn’t a turn off, but a conversation starter.

Well, Marcel is here now, and we know that her ten fingers and ten toes are beautiful and smart. The suspense, now, is only over what’s their talent.

Maybe it’s photography.

One day, Marcel kept screaming and screaming but nothing we did would console her. We checked her diaper, tried to feed her, swaddled and shushed her, but nothing worked until we happened to put her down on the bed near a pile of torn out magazine pages.

Once we put her down, she reached and grabbed at those pages with a fury and excitement that was really, very surprising. She loved it! It got to the point where pages, not pacifiers, were the trick to satisfy her.

Or maybe it’s musical instruments.

For Marcel’s first birthday, my youngest sister got Marcel a mini electric keyboard, complete with microphone. Marcel loved that thing. She’d turn it on, click on one of the tempos (samba, anyone), plaster her mouth on the mic and raise the roof.

Later, she would sit with my dad at his piano and watch him play or bang away at the keys, herself. It got to the point where she’d look for music, anywhere. When looking to purchase a new house, she ran through a house turning on the clock radio, the boom box and even opened the baby grand piano, all the while screaming, “Music! Music!”

Now, though, I think it’s singing.

I’ve been trying to teach Marcel the “A,B,C” song for months. All I ever got for it, however, was a blank stare.

Maybe she thought I was trying to put her to bed, like when I sing her “Amazing Grace” at bedtime. Even though she didn’t grab my mouth to shut me up so she could get some rest as she sometimes did at bedtime, she still wasn’t overly eager to get involved. She just stared.

Thanks to a few weeks of Fancy Day Care, though, she now joins right in (except for that very difficult part, “L,M,N,O,P”). Just the other day, she even taught me a new song.

Hold the rail/Let’s stay safe!

I’m told this is the walking up the stairs song.

Here’s to hoping they have a “Bring daddy breakfast in bed” song.