My daughter . . . the Princess!

“Daddy, I a princess,” my daughter says in her excited three year old voice.

            She doesn’t have to convince me.  I have believed this since the day she was born.  In fact, when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, my greatest fear was that she would have me wrapped around her little, princess fingers . . . which has proven to be totally true and an accurate concern.  However, her view of her being a princess and mine are different, I mean, my peasant mind could not fathom the duties and responsibilities or royalty, right?  She has totally embraced the idea of a princess gown and tiara (which she calls a “crown”) as the defining characteristics of a princess, while in my mind, she just IS my princess.

She has started insisting on wearing her dress up princess costumes all the time.  The people we run across at church, restaurants, or the local grocery store actually make the situation even more difficult to manage as she is consistently hearing, “Oh, isn’t the little princess so cute!”  To which she gives a big grin with squinty eyes, tilting her head to the side in an effort to feign bashfulness, and will often end in a twirl.

She loves to dress like a princess so much that she doesn’t want to be seen until she is in full princess regalia.  One recent morning, I was coming down the hall as my wife was assisting her in putting on her full princess gear.  I was met with, “Daddy, No!  Don’t look!  I not ready!”

Now this wasn’t because she was indecent, it was because she wasn’t perfectly dressed in her beautiful gown.  In fact, she often can’t decide on which princess outfit she should wear, so what should any self-respecting princess do in such a conundrum?  Why she wears them all, of course.  It not unusual to see our little princess wandering through the house with a white gown, covered by a red sparkly dress, covered by a pink tutu.  Try telling her that it’s too much or it doesn’t match and suffer the princess wrath.

Recently, we forced her to wear some of her normal three year old clothes (this wasn’t to prove a point, it was simply because those dresses had to be washed or they would probably start twirling on their own) and she went into a depression.  As I walked into the room, I said, “How’s my little princess?”

Only to be met with, “I not a princess,” followed by a sad and disappointed sigh. 

“But you have your crown on.” I responded, trying to bring her out of her funk, it didn’t matter, she knew better . . . she is royalty after all. 

There is a bridal shop we drive by several times a day with beautiful gowns in the window and every time we drive by she says, “I want to get married.”  Now she has no interest in boys at this age, it all dates back to a conversation when her mommy told her she could wear one of those dresses when she got married.  We’ll have to coach her on the real meaning of marriage as she grows older, because all it means now is that she gets to wear a beautiful white gown and look like a princess.

No matter how far away a wedding day may seem, it is too soon for this daddy!  My daughter doesn’t need a white dress to be a princess in my eyes . . . but then, I clearly have no understanding of the true duties of royalty.                   

            

The voice of an angel and a voice that is not.

My daughter has the voice of an angel. Of course I say that because she is my daughter. However, she is two years old and any two year old singing, “Jesus Loves Me”, sounds like an angel. She sings all the time and when she doesn’t know a song, she makes up her own. She seems to be developing into a little song bird. I believe she gets this skill and interest from my wife. My wife also has a beautiful voice. Now I know what you are thinking, “Matt, you have to say that because she is your wife.” True. However, others have confirmed this fact as she has been in church choirs for many years, so half of our family of four is musically gifted.


The other half of the family . . . well, let’s just say we have “other” gifts. In fairness, my son doesn’t have a bad singing voice, he just seems disinterested. Every night, we read a book, sing a song, and say our prayers and he seems least interested in singing a song. My hope is that he did not receive the ear for music that his father has. You see, I am not a good singer. To be completely candid, that statement is not completely accurate, it is actually an overstatement of my skills.

To show you just how bad I am, I’ll share a story. When I was in high school, I tried out for the school choir. I was a senior and had enough credits to graduate and I didn’t want to take an additional study hall, so I signed up. Although, deep in the recesses of my mind I believed that it was possible I had some untapped talent that could be released in this class. Once I joined the class, I sang my heart out, I held nothing back. Apparently, holding back is exactly what I should have been doing.

After about three days in the choir, the instructor asked me to stay after class. I thought for certain she was going to offer me my first breakout role and give me a solo in the upcoming school musical. So you can imagine my surprise when she said, “Matt, we are glad you joined choir, but we are going to ask you to . . . well . . . we’d prefer it if you didn’t sing.”

“But this is choir, that’s what you do in choir, SING!” I said in astonishment.

“Yes, that is what makes this so hard,” the instructor responded sheepishly, and she walked away.

I remember storming out of the choir loft believing that she was nuts. I even went home and tape recorded myself and played it back to hear what she was listening to in order to confirm my beliefs. However, after some time I started to realize, wow, I am really not a very good singer. In fact, the more I listened, the worse it got. How had I become so disillusioned?

As you might imagine, I have become hypersensitive to this issue and probably fall on the Simon Cowell side of critical when listening to those around me. So rest assured, if you have the opportunity to hear my wife or daughter sing, you will be blessed, they have voices of angels. On the flip side, don’t sit in front of me at church, praise and worship might just be painful.