Monday, November 13, 2017

Slice of Life: You don't know the words?

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 




I had a moment last week when I worried about the (okay, my--) parenting of my youngest daughter. She loves babysitting, and she went off with a skip in her step to watch over our friends' boys. The three year old was still up, so she had the task of putting him to bed. When I picked her up, she told me all about it. 

"We played blocks," she said. (That's good, I thought. Nice divergent, creative play.)
"We watched a show." (I'd rather you'd have read more books, but okay.)
"I read him a few books." (Now we're talking! What books did you read?)
"The only problem I had was that he wanted me to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." (What?!?!? Why?!?! You have a beautiful voice--)

And then, she told me she had to google the words to Twinkle, Twinkle.

I'll let you go back and read that again. Yes. Go back and read that last line again.

Nope, not the second verse. The main verse. 

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Had I really not taught my little girl the words to Twinkle, Twinkle? 

I laughed. So did she. 

"I couldn't remember if there was another line after the diamond in the sky part," she explained. "I know the tune from playing violin, but not the words."

Fortunately, she's a child who sees the humor in these sort of occurrences, and she can acknowledge that learning words is sometimes hard for her. And I can acknowledge that since she is the youngest of four, she might not have heard traditional lullabies with the same enthusiasm as her older sisters might have.

But I'm left to wonder what else I have forgotten to teach her. What else is she missing? And will those other missing parts be able to be filled in by a quick google search?

Here's hoping--

Happy writing,