Music appreciation

"Good morning table, I love you, candle"
(note object in her right hand - LED candle, banished from her room last night)











Bling bling "YELLOW is my favorite color and carpet's on the FLOOR
Furniture is good and three little birds in your eyes of blue!"










..and then we got serious.

This morning, Dear Alex was a wonder - all sweetness and light, it was the best of times. As I have written, there is a lot of satisfaction in that good morning ritual, needs unspoken and familiar easily met. We started early today, with plenty of time to play, and get into the morning in way that I haven't seen in a while. Dear Alex was in a musical mood, and she played a song on her yellow guitar, completely off key, atonal and random - but with real joy and energy. It was fun to watch, but it was impossible to sing along. It strikes me that this is important stuff, that she's fearlessly combining and recombining songs and music that she's heard to make something her own and to entertain herself and play for an appreciative audience. I love this quality of creative fearlessness, and freshness and doing what feels good because she likes doing it, and as bad as her singing might be - she really doesn't care, and I'm certainly not going to tell her - ever. At some point, her mood changed, and Dear Alex stopped the random strumming and singing, and asked "can I play xylophone"? Of course. She got very serious, and played and sang a pretty creditable rendition of "twinkle twinkle little star" softly, and hit the keys of the xylophone in time, with great care and precision* - it's as though she was telling, no demonstrating to me that in addition to flying her freak flag, she could also play by the rules, and do it pretty damn well. It was amazing, but then again, Dear Alex is amazing. I write about this not so much to boast about her musical talent (that remains to be seen) but in wonder at what drives her performance and her fearlessness... Oh, wait - It's that two-ish lack of self consciousness - no filters, because there are no cultural references yet. I love it, but why then the careful, considered performance to close the musical morning? Maybe she just wanted to see if she could.
Waking up to Dear Alex is my second favorite thing in the world, second only to waking up next to Beautiful Wife - Five nights away, and only ten more days until BW returns from California, but who's counting?**


*Dear nanny J. had arrived by this point, and witnessed the whole performance. It stopped her, too.
** So far, It's 23 diapers, 6 meals, 2 baths, and 5 solo Putting-Dear-Alex-to-Bed rituals. (not that I'm counting, or anything)