Learning Together

In high school, I loved the programs Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet.

I have introduced my daughter to both of them, particularly the goofy songs from the latter.

Yesterday, I began singing “Everybody Wants to be Space Ghost,” and at a key moment, my daughter filled in the line supplied by one of the show’s villains.

I told my wife about my daughter’s memory at dinner. My story inspired a quotation fest from my daughter. She reeled off several one-liners from a Coast to Coast compilation we watched together.

I’m consistently amazed at what my daughter remembers. My wife and I laughed a lot last night. The one-liners were funny, and the fact that my daughter remembered them made them funnier.

But with that power comes great responsibility. I need to reflect on what I’m saying, listening to, and watching. My daughter absorbs it all.

Last night, we had dinner with our church family. Three different women told my wife and me about our daughter’s fantastic prayer from the week before.

The Methodist Youth Fellowship crew had just learned about the passing of a former church member. When the grown-ups asked the kids who wanted to pray, my daughter raised her hand. The pastor described the prayer as a “Holy Ghost moment.”

Strangely, none of the women could remember her exact words. They were blown away by the words that came out of our six-year-old daughter’s mouth.

“Y’all are doing something right,” the pastor said. With God’s help, I pray we are.

This summer, I read my daughter The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. For her birthday, my daughter received the film version and has been wanting to see it. Tonight, my wife was out to dinner with friends, so I took the opportunity to make Saturday evening a dad/daughter movie night.

We got through about 40 minutes of the film before she’s had enough. Throughout the action, she kept comparing what she saw with what she had imagined when I read her the book.

• “I didn’t think the house was that big.”
• “I thought Mr. Tumnus would have four legs!” (She didn’t really know what a faun was, it turns out.)
• “I thought the Wicked Queen’s hair would be white.”
• “I thought Susan wouldn’t be that old.”

She eventually wanted to press pause because the film got too scary. I guess it’s easier to imagine a less threatening version of the Wicked Queen’s castle. The visuals of stone giants and terrifying wolves and ice sculptures were too much.

For now, the book is beating the film. We’ll see what her verdict is when we actually finish the film.

This afternoon, my daughter sat with my wife on our living room couched and geeked out over a dictionary.

My daughter wants to write, but she doesn’t know how to spell many words. This wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t so devoted to perfection.

My wife broke her out her first dictionary, and together, they looked up words ranging from “ant” to “star.” It was a beautiful thing to see.

My wife’s second cousin passed away Sunday. She had been sick for awhile, but it was sad to lose her.

While she battled cancer, my daughter and I sent her postcards. Typically, I would write a short message, and my daughter would draw a picture and write, “I love you!”

As we approached the funeral home this evening, my daughter observed that she didn’t really know what my wife’s second cousin looked like. She had moved to North Carolina when my daughter was three, and my daughter only knew her as the person she periodically wrote to.

I’m glad my daughter used her love of writing to be a blessing to someone. Last year, I got a call from my wife’s second cousin that told me she had put up my daughter’s card on her wall. My daughter’s writing made a difference in someone’s life. I hope she keeps it up.

My daughter watched a cartoon today that featured a spelling bee.

After dinner, she spent time working on a “book” (really, more like a worksheet) of her own devising and wanted us to help her spell numerous words.

My wife and I are trying to teach our daughter to be a) more self-reliant and b) willing to make mistakes. The real reason she likes us to help her is because she hates if she gets the tiniest thing wrong.

So my wife and I said that she should try to spell the words herself.

Well, she did.

She spelled “words” like this: WRDS.

But she tried. And she didn’t throw a fit. And she made her own book. And she spelled the word “banjo” correctly.

And she closed the night by asking; “Tomorrow, when I get up and before I go to school, can you give me some words to spell?” Yep. Sure can. How about “GROWTH” and “MINDSET”?

Our daughter learned to play Crazy Eights last night. She even won two of the three games we played.

But she needed help.

She didn’t get the concept of matching, and strategy? She called out random suits when she played her Crazy Eight.

Today, she and my wife played a few more games, and my wife already saw marked improvement.

She knew which cards to play without prompting. She knew that when she played her Eight, it would be best to call a suit she had multiple cards for. She even held onto her Eight until late in the game.

Crazy Eights is a simple game, but it was good to hear that my daughter was learning how to play it more skillfully that quickly.

Now if we can just work on her magnanimity in victory and defeat…

My daughter has an assignment. She must practice reading a book and then have us recording her going through it.

She picked this book.

As soon as we got home, she got the book out and read it four times.

The only word she didn’t know? “Ultimatum.” Not bad.

I particularly liked her self-motivated impulse to practice as soon as she got home. When she has an assignment she cares about, she doesn’t wait.

Tonight at dinner, my daughter showed us a collection of photographs of her “friends,” the children in her kindergarten class.

There are twenty-two people in her class, including her. Like a champ, she named each one. We heard familiar names: the two girls she spends the most time with and the boys she plays with at recess, in particular.

We heard details about each kid and what their favorite animals were.

In the top row, third from the left is my daughter smiling without showing her teeth.

“Who’s that?” my wife asked.

“That’s me, silly!” she said.

Dinner time has turned into an informal school debriefing. Because my wife and I have opposite schedules, one of us knows about our daughter’s day and the other doesn’t. When we sit down to eat, then, the one who picked her up gets to present leading questions and the absent parent gets to task follow-ups.

The questions serve a couple purposes.

1. They keep our peripatetic daughter at the table for more than five minutes.
2. They give our daughter the chance to recall details from earlier conversations.
3. They give the present parent a chance to show that they’ve listened to said earlier conversation.
4. They provide ample opportunity for laughs. The stories usually devolve into giggles as either me or my wife or my daughter start riffing on the day’s events.

Tonight’s nugget: my daughter looks forward to music class every Friday.