CATS and Sensitivity

Okay... so, Daisy is really starting to remind me of me and Mark, and I mean really REALLY. She always did, but lately it's scary. She is sensitive. She has started getting a "crying feeling" when she thinks about sad stories. Her eyes fill with tears when she thinks about sad parts of stories and she wipes her eyes, saying she is trying to "wipe away the feeling." And then she thinks of the same plot points days later and gets the crying feeling again. She is not even four yet and already such an empathizer. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but she strikes me as very attuned to aesthetic experiences. She truly feels for characters and is sensitive to music, even to pretty subtle shifts in the mood conveyed by different pieces. Sometimes after hearing a song just once she'll tell us about it days later--"I'm thinking about that song." She tells me about the things she's imagining while she hears favorite songs, too, and it's very sweet; often she's imagining that she and her friends are performing the music in various settings, or she's performing them with fictional characters she loves. And it seems that nothing gets past her. She remembers even minor moments in stories where a character feels sad or suffers even briefly, and will bring it up days later.

On a lighter note, today we (Mark, Gommy, and I) took her to a production of CATS and she loved it. She was rapt the entire time-- she knew almost all the songs and characters from the album. She asked me a million questions about the lyrics as the show went on (the shrewd girl always zooms in on the problematic lines--what is a fading rose? What does it mean that the street lamp dies? Who is that cat in all the black robes?) and she was nervous that the song "Memory" was going to make her sad. She had had the "crying feeling" as we sat in the audience waiting for the show to begin, as she reminisced about some sad parts of stories she's read, and then she asked me several times whether "Memory" was going to be happy or sad. I tried to explain "bittersweet" to her, but she kept insisting I pinpoint it as either happy or sad. Then, when it actually started, she said with great concern, "Is this a happy song?"

But she was fine, and her eyes were huge throughout the whole show. I wasn't entirely sure that would happen, since the show is longer than two hours, but it worked out well. Then, after the show, she got to meet some of the actors in the lobby, including her two faves. Macavity high-fived her and she had a pleasant exchange with Mr. Mistoffeles. Pictures!

Before CATS--getting ready



Dancing around before CATS

On our way to the show


Daisy and Dada at the show

After the show I bought her her favorite balloons--red ones