Beard Confusion
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| Mara also gets confused by the Bearded shirt that Greg received from Joe (Thanks!!) |
- thinly framed glasses
- casual t shirt
- and a happy attitude
This pretty much also describes a man that came for the first time with his son to this week's music class.
Thus began a story of love and confusion.
Mara is normally quite shy in class, staying next to one of us, her Mommy or Daddy, unless there is a very cool object in range. When that happens, Mara springs towards the object with no regards to the hordes (well, not more than 9-10 usually) of other larger toddlers moving about.
Today seemed no different. We sat down in the circle after coming in and I had her tiny hand practically glued onto my skirt. Daddy was a few seconds behind, having locked up the car. He came in and sat to my right.
However, the moment Mara looked across me to the left, something clicked. The new daddy in all bearded glory and his pale-haired son were sitting right there next to us. She crawled over me and pulled herself up onto her feet, standing up with her hands on the shoulder of the surprised dad.
We were initially confused why she was so friendly but then noticed the traits of the other dad.
At this point, I must mention that Greg had just trimmed his beard that morning, which generally means he looks like a woodsman that had been stuck in the wilderness for only 4 months, rather than the usual 10 months to a year's worth of beard at a "normal" rate.
Thus Mara heard my beckoning whispers and glanced at Daddy a few times, but every time she seemed to conclude that "Nope, that's not the one." then she would resume her stance holding on tight to the other dad.
The class started and Mara was adamant. We were smiling and so were the parents around.
A nine month old girl can teach you a life lesson:
You see someone you like, you don't take chances. You grab his sleeve and hold on tight, gaze longingly into his eyes and ignore all attempts at distraction by surrounding people.
My daughter was standing tall, grabbing onto the shirt, like there was nothing else in the universe that mattered but holding tight to that shoulder.
She looked at the child in his lap, seemingly trying to understand why there is no space for her there, but accepted it pretty quickly. Furthermore, she developed a little crush on the boy himself, Emir, who was as sweet as the dad, although equally confused at the situation.
The boy petted Mara hair in turn and she smiled. The tight fist holding the dad's shirt sleeve was relentless.
I talked to Mara again, I showed her where daddy was, she glanced at him for a bit then turned back. There was no swapping. Talk about a focused little girl!
Two songs into the class, the teacher burst into laughter because of cute little Mara.
Greg moved over next to her and touched her back gently. It took a lot of convincing until she finally caved in and crawled onto Greg's knee. But plenty of times throughout the class she would make eye contact again with Emir or his dad and put up the brightest smile she could muster.
It ended well. Mara figured out which one was which and came home with her own daddy! For the rest of the day she did not lose sight of him for one bit, even skipping naps until Daddy held her tight.
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| Romanian picnic in Baylands Park - Thank you for organizing this, SJHolyCross.org! We ate two different types of sarmale, from Moldova and Ardeal. |
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| Eating grapes under very close supervision (choking hazards!). Mara was very careful to slowly shred them with her front teeth. She loved being able to grasp the whole bunch. |
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