Shameless gushing over my girl
But first I have to report that she ate her dinner tonight without my having to sing "There Was A Tree." (Okay, that was kind of a lie: but I only had to sing one or two verses.)
So, my mom is probably out there wondering why I haven't blogged about this yet; it's because of fear of grossing people out by going on and on about how cute Daisy is being. But, this IS really cute and I should blog it.
For the last few weeks, Daisy has been obsessed with a short video featuring clips of three performances: one from the children's opera of Where the Wild Things Are, then a piece of a piano performance by Marcus Roberts of Thelonious Monk's Blue Monk, then a longer segment of a performance by an orchestra featuring a guitar soloist named Eduardo Fernandez. Now, Daisy LOVES this tape and asks us to play it over and over again, and she comments on the music in the most fervent way possible. First she's all excited about Max and calling out, "Look, there's Max! There is a wild thing! It's blowing fire out of its nose!" Then, "Marcus Roberts is coming on!" She watches the video of him playing the piano with totally rapt attention. Then--the biggest attraction of all. "The orchestra! The orchestra!" she shouts in excitement. "Where is the Ductor?" The Ductor is the conductor and she is completely in raptures with him.
She narrates the whole classical piece from beginning to end, saying, "It's Eduardo Fernandez, playing the guitar!" Then she names all the other instruments as they come onto the screen or she hears them-- "It's the xylophone! It's the oboe!" Then, as the music swells, she wants to stand on the coffee table and conduct along with the Ductor, waving the Conducting Earrings. Now, I wasn't home when she came up with the Conducting Earrings, so my mother can explain better, but essentially, she told my mom one day that she wanted to conduct while holding a pair of earrings, one in each hand, and she has done it ever since. IT IS SO CUTE. She waves her arms enthusiastically along with the ductor, crying out, "It's getting louder! It's getting louder!" as the music rises.
She seems genuinely moved by the music and is very interested in the players of all the different parts. There is nothing in life that grips her more. So we think she might be innately a musician. Or a Ductor. She is sometimes so excited by the orchestra that she can barely contain herself, and she begs me, "Play the orchestra! Play Fernandez!" every single day.
A final note about something I'm noticing lately about Daisy, and I don't know if it's just Daisy or whether children in general do this. If she asks me a question and I answer a certain way, she seems to want the same exact wording the next time, and she corrects me if it's not exact. So, she pointed out a bird in a book the other day and asked me what it was; I said "A bird" and she said, "No, no, it's a hawk." Another example: during Marcus Roberts's performance tonight, she asked me what was on the screen and I said, "The audience watching Marcus Roberts," and she said, "No, no, it's the people's heads."
I find that cute. Oh my gosh, she is amazing. I could gush forever, actually. Tonight when I read her Goodnight Moon, she went through a page and named every single object on it, without my prompting. And she honest to goodness has dozens and dozens of books memorized. The best part, though, is listening to how spirited her readings are-- how she modulates her tone for different scenes, and does funny voices for dialogue, and gesticulates, and points at the page dramatically. She has certainly learned the Mama and Gommy Susan reading style!
So, my mom is probably out there wondering why I haven't blogged about this yet; it's because of fear of grossing people out by going on and on about how cute Daisy is being. But, this IS really cute and I should blog it.
For the last few weeks, Daisy has been obsessed with a short video featuring clips of three performances: one from the children's opera of Where the Wild Things Are, then a piece of a piano performance by Marcus Roberts of Thelonious Monk's Blue Monk, then a longer segment of a performance by an orchestra featuring a guitar soloist named Eduardo Fernandez. Now, Daisy LOVES this tape and asks us to play it over and over again, and she comments on the music in the most fervent way possible. First she's all excited about Max and calling out, "Look, there's Max! There is a wild thing! It's blowing fire out of its nose!" Then, "Marcus Roberts is coming on!" She watches the video of him playing the piano with totally rapt attention. Then--the biggest attraction of all. "The orchestra! The orchestra!" she shouts in excitement. "Where is the Ductor?" The Ductor is the conductor and she is completely in raptures with him.
She narrates the whole classical piece from beginning to end, saying, "It's Eduardo Fernandez, playing the guitar!" Then she names all the other instruments as they come onto the screen or she hears them-- "It's the xylophone! It's the oboe!" Then, as the music swells, she wants to stand on the coffee table and conduct along with the Ductor, waving the Conducting Earrings. Now, I wasn't home when she came up with the Conducting Earrings, so my mother can explain better, but essentially, she told my mom one day that she wanted to conduct while holding a pair of earrings, one in each hand, and she has done it ever since. IT IS SO CUTE. She waves her arms enthusiastically along with the ductor, crying out, "It's getting louder! It's getting louder!" as the music rises.
She seems genuinely moved by the music and is very interested in the players of all the different parts. There is nothing in life that grips her more. So we think she might be innately a musician. Or a Ductor. She is sometimes so excited by the orchestra that she can barely contain herself, and she begs me, "Play the orchestra! Play Fernandez!" every single day.
A final note about something I'm noticing lately about Daisy, and I don't know if it's just Daisy or whether children in general do this. If she asks me a question and I answer a certain way, she seems to want the same exact wording the next time, and she corrects me if it's not exact. So, she pointed out a bird in a book the other day and asked me what it was; I said "A bird" and she said, "No, no, it's a hawk." Another example: during Marcus Roberts's performance tonight, she asked me what was on the screen and I said, "The audience watching Marcus Roberts," and she said, "No, no, it's the people's heads."
I find that cute. Oh my gosh, she is amazing. I could gush forever, actually. Tonight when I read her Goodnight Moon, she went through a page and named every single object on it, without my prompting. And she honest to goodness has dozens and dozens of books memorized. The best part, though, is listening to how spirited her readings are-- how she modulates her tone for different scenes, and does funny voices for dialogue, and gesticulates, and points at the page dramatically. She has certainly learned the Mama and Gommy Susan reading style!
posted by Sarah Goss at 8:35 PM
2 Comments:
Wow.
Adrienne
Darling, I call the bird in Madlenka a hawk. Also, in the Marcus Roberts piece, I point out the people's heads because we cannot see their faces. Now, I was babysitting when this amazing series of events first took place. She climbed up on the coffee table (podium) and was conducting a CD of her childrens" songs. Then she asked for the Ductor video and asked me to remove my "ducting earrings", which she later called "conducting earrings." I was standing very close to her (so she wouldn't fall off the table) and I understood how moved she was by the music. Do you remember that once during the playing of the Fernandez piece her eyes welled with tears when the music swelled and she asked us to turn it off? I couldn't wait for you and Mark to get home so I could tell you about this event! I've made her a new video of exerpts. I think she'll like Martha Argurich playing Schumann. M.B.
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