Daddy Says

On her way to school yesterday morning my little daughter sent me a message. She does not have her own BlackBerry so I assume that she had tied up her mother and rifled the device from her handbag. My little pearly sent "I love you Daddy". That's always a good piece of fruit for my cereal. I replied "Love you too, blimp." The airwaves went dead and I presume she got to school alright. Later in the day, when she was having her usual Friday sushi lunch with her mother, I got another message from 'BlackBerry Annie': "Why am I a blimp?"

The child has been encouraged to ask questions and to think about what answers mean. Now, I had to challenge all the little learning she had. I could not figure out how to send her a picture of a blimp, so I wrote: "A blimp is a balloon, like you see at the tennis or big shows. They fly freely and are filled with a gas called helium. Helium gas makes you laugh. So you are my little blimp: a free-flying little bag of laughing gas :-)" I then sent the message to her big sister, who was dosing herself with Percocet and Ben & Jerry ice cream, asking that she makes sure the little Einstein had the words for later in life. Big sis assured me that it would go into her photos folder. Of course, Big sis is well accustomed to the nicknames her Dad gives--it's a real Jamaican thing, too, so she took her cue and asked me "Why do you call me EBay?" I had to laugh to myself. I explained that it was a weak play on her name, Eleanor, and 'baby', and it had been concocted during those days when I was playing with selling pens on eBay. We both laughed at that in our messages, not least because if you write (b) it creates a dark sun glasses-wearing Emoticon.

There are many ways that parents interact with their children and having them separated by nearly 20 years puts that interaction into some interesting contexts. Fortunately, my approach has been broadly the same ever since. I have modified based on what I thought worked well with 'mark 1' child. One thing I get lil sis to do is to tell stories, but also to learn the important flaw that people have of distorting stories. Kids disagree over all sorts of things and often run to an adult saying "X was mean to me." I asked my little one to try to deal with the wrong herself but if she came running to me the story had to start "I did .... then X did ...". She found it odd at first, but as we tried it with one of her playmates, who also had to follow the same rule we got a better idea of what was going on. So, I heard "I pushed Matthew then he was mean to me back." That's better. Now, I could figure out what to do. The kids now understand this is how I operate. No one does things in isolation, but often out of provocation. One has to see what was the provoking moment.