My daughter is freaking me out
I really think she is smarter than I am. She often corrects me about minute details in books now, and usually, she's right.
And tonight, just now? She freaked me out. She was reading her book of Island in the Sun, the Harry Belafonte song; it's a picture book and each page has a lyric from the song. At first I wasn't paying much attention, but then I heard her say, "When morning breaks the heaven on high, I lift my load to the heavy sky." Then she turned the page and said, "Sun comes down with a burning glow, mingles my sweat with the earth below." Then she turned the page and said, "Oh island in the sun, willed to me by my father's hand, all my days I will sing in praise of your forests, waters, your shining sand." Then she turned the page and said, "I see woman on bended knee, cutting cane for her family." Then she turned the page and said, "I see man at the water's side, casting nets at the surging tide."
Uhhh... yeah. Every word, crystal clear. I can't say she was PERFECTLY clear when she said, "Never let me miss carnival with calypso songs philosophical"--but she got most of it. And it's not just that she says all these sentences clearly, with fairly big words-- it's that she has memorized every page of her books. Dozens of them. I want to say hundreds, though maybe that's an exaggeration.
She freaks me out. I still remember being stunned when I realized she had committed most of Mother Goose's rhymes to memory, and now that seems completely ancient history for her. If this is what she's like at two years (and almost three months), I imagine she'll be correcting me about EVERYthing by the time she's four.
I just hope she is smarter than I am in every way, not just the verbal. You should have seen my pathetic efforts to make a kite for her at Crissy Field Fantastic Friday today! All the other parents were following along with the presentation and folding their piece of paper this way and that, and somewhere along, oh, step three, I was hopelessly lost. It broke my heart when Daisy said, "Mommy, where's my kite?" as all the other kids were running off with theirs. It also brough back bad memories of kindergarten (oh my God, I almost typed "bad mammaries"--what a Freudian slip) and how I couldn't make a symmetrical heart for Valentine's Day if my life depended on it. I really think I had (have) some kind of mental deficiency in spatial relations. I hope Daisy doesn't have it. I fear she'll end up like me, using language to compensate for being weak in pretty much everything else.
Oh, but I shouldn't leave out the happy ending of the story: with the help of other, abler adults, the kite got made and Daisy got to run around with it like the other kids. See, that's one area where I excel: going right up to people and saying, "I can't do this if my life depended on it. Help me, please? See my daughter's big brown eyes??"
And tonight, just now? She freaked me out. She was reading her book of Island in the Sun, the Harry Belafonte song; it's a picture book and each page has a lyric from the song. At first I wasn't paying much attention, but then I heard her say, "When morning breaks the heaven on high, I lift my load to the heavy sky." Then she turned the page and said, "Sun comes down with a burning glow, mingles my sweat with the earth below." Then she turned the page and said, "Oh island in the sun, willed to me by my father's hand, all my days I will sing in praise of your forests, waters, your shining sand." Then she turned the page and said, "I see woman on bended knee, cutting cane for her family." Then she turned the page and said, "I see man at the water's side, casting nets at the surging tide."
Uhhh... yeah. Every word, crystal clear. I can't say she was PERFECTLY clear when she said, "Never let me miss carnival with calypso songs philosophical"--but she got most of it. And it's not just that she says all these sentences clearly, with fairly big words-- it's that she has memorized every page of her books. Dozens of them. I want to say hundreds, though maybe that's an exaggeration.
She freaks me out. I still remember being stunned when I realized she had committed most of Mother Goose's rhymes to memory, and now that seems completely ancient history for her. If this is what she's like at two years (and almost three months), I imagine she'll be correcting me about EVERYthing by the time she's four.
I just hope she is smarter than I am in every way, not just the verbal. You should have seen my pathetic efforts to make a kite for her at Crissy Field Fantastic Friday today! All the other parents were following along with the presentation and folding their piece of paper this way and that, and somewhere along, oh, step three, I was hopelessly lost. It broke my heart when Daisy said, "Mommy, where's my kite?" as all the other kids were running off with theirs. It also brough back bad memories of kindergarten (oh my God, I almost typed "bad mammaries"--what a Freudian slip) and how I couldn't make a symmetrical heart for Valentine's Day if my life depended on it. I really think I had (have) some kind of mental deficiency in spatial relations. I hope Daisy doesn't have it. I fear she'll end up like me, using language to compensate for being weak in pretty much everything else.
Oh, but I shouldn't leave out the happy ending of the story: with the help of other, abler adults, the kite got made and Daisy got to run around with it like the other kids. See, that's one area where I excel: going right up to people and saying, "I can't do this if my life depended on it. Help me, please? See my daughter's big brown eyes??"
posted by Sarah Goss at 8:20 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Sar, I'm sure you've noticed that for the last month or so Daisy has been pointing to WORDS in her books and saying, "What's that?" and not just pictures. M.B.
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