Learning Together

Yesterday, my daughter took the stage. Our church’s Christmas play clocked in at just over ten minutes. The crowd loved it. The actual festivities happened in the social hall later as we celebrated a church member’s ninetieth birthday. Here are five takeaways.

1. My daughter was an angel and wore a white dress that my wife had worn when she was a child.
2. Every performer spoke their lines admirably. My daughter was particularly good.
3. Each actor had their lines hidden in a book that they could refer to if they were lost. My daughter appealed to those hidden lines enough that she earned kudos for her reading.
4. The angel’s best line: “Lead on, Gabriel!”
5. A real delight: the audience joining the actors in singing “Away in the Manger,” “Angels We Have Heard on High,” and “Joy to the World.”

This afternoon, my daughter attended a performance of A Christmas Carol with my wife. She sat still for over two hours while students from a local high school performed the Dickens classic.

My daughter ate a Sonic kids meal with me this evening and watched Madagascar (2005). My wife celebrated her birthday early with some friends.

My wife introduced her to a significant work of literature. I got her fast food and showed her a movie featuring the voice talents of David Schwimmer.

I did wash her hair before bed and read her a book about avoiding the fate of a couch potato. Small victories.

My youngest brother turned 25 today. I can remember the day he was born. He was the first child I cared for, and my time with him prepared me to be a father.

My daughter loves being a niece. She sent my brother a goofy birthday video this morning and drew him a picture at school. Our time with him today was brief, but I’m glad my daughter enjoyed it.

My daughter made this at her public school today. It warmed my heart.

My wife’s cousin lives down the road from us. He has a huge tree in his house but no ornaments. My daughter decided the tree needed some decorations, so on Saturday afternoon, she made two tree hangings out of paper. Tonight, she got to deliver them in person and even hang them on the tree. She can certainly be sweet when she wants to be.

Today, I had to call the insurance company to set up a new policy for our new car. My daughter was fascinated by the call and particularly the call-waiting music that the insurance company played. She had lots of questions.

1. Why did I need insurance?
2. Where was the person I was talking to?
3. Why did the phone play music?
4. What was the person doing while the music was playing?
5. How would I know when the person was coming back?

She wanted to play “Insurance Agent” when the call was through. Do I need to tell you that I was the customer or spent most of the game on hold?

“I’m going bird-watching,” my daughter told me this afternoon. She headed outside with her binoculars. Soon, she was perched on the porch with her mom looking at birds eating from our bird feeders. When she came inside, she told me about deer bones she found in our front yard. She created a map for future exploration with a magic marker and a blank piece of paper. The entire day, she traveled the world in and around our house. Her imagination knows no bounds.

Tonight, our family attended the church Christmas party. Our church is small, so only twenty-six people attended. My daughter was the youngest, and she ran the party.

My daughter likes to talk and move. She’s cute, so she gobbles up attention. During tonight’s ornament exchange, she played up her love for her ornament and drew the crowd’s admiration.

On the way home from work, I imagined her as a twelve-year-old. I wanted to tell her so many things. I just wanted to talk with her. I wondered if, at that point, she would still want to talk with me.

I have given her my sense of humor. How can I give her the awareness to appreciate that an entire room of retirement age grown-ups love her? It takes me awhile to appreciate that fact, and I’m forty. I can’t give her what I don’t have. I want my eyes and ears to be wide open.

I watch old cartoon clips with my daughter, the kind of things I thought were funny when I was in high school. Space Ghost Coast to Coast is one we like a lot. It’s goofy and absurd, and when I laugh at it, my daughter laughs too.

The show drips with irony. Wacky clips of the 60s cartoon hero Space Ghost get spliced together with interviews of contemporary celebrities. The results are awkward at their worst but hilarious at their best. In one episode, wrestler Randy Savage guest stars as Space Ghost’s grandfather. He then interviews guests like Raven Samone in his full-tilt Macho Man persona.

My daughter thought this was hilarious.

At church on Sunday, the pastor’s daughter asked my wife if we had a pet monkey. No, my wife replied. Why on earth would she ask that?

Because our daughter had been talking about a monkey hitting her over the head with a folding chair. In short, our daughter had been quoting the Space Ghost clip for the kids at church.

After I got done laughing, I felt very proud and aware of the vast responsibility of raising a child. She notices what I enjoy, even silly cartoons featuring the vocal talents of Randy Savage.