Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Thursday was BYDtWD (see title above). My co-teacher brought his 2-year-old with him. It was a testing day, so it was a risk, since there isn't much interesting going on for us, let alone a 2-year-old girl. She had a pretty good time though and is a sweet kid.

Before class starts, I usually stand outside. playing one of my ukes as I greet the students. I re-entered strumming as the students settled down. She has seen me play my ukulele before and at first called it a guitar. Her father asked her what it was and she said "ukulele," or an approximation thereof. The kid's learning.

Later, during a break in testing, she asked me to play her a song. I asked her what song, she asked for U2's "Vertigo," because her father, a big u2 fan, has taught her to be a u2 fan. That's his favorite song right now, so it's hers too.

So I said, "I don't know that song, but I do know a song that I think you know." I then whipped into "Wild Honey." It was Jon's idea that "Wild Honey" would be a good uke song. He and his daughter sing it together sometimes at home.

Her eyes opened up wide and she said "We're IN this song!"

I said "You are? Where?"

"We're the monkeys!" she said.

So I played her the first verse and she sang along. When I got into the second verse, something else caught her attention and she ran off.

I try not be hurt. She has a 2-year-old's attention span. Also, the second verse is where Bono stops singing about monkeys and starts talking about the weather and time and that sort of thing.

But it does seem like everybody's a critic.

Later on, when her dad was talking to the students, she was running around. She's much cuter than her dad, so the students were more interested in her.

I tried to help by taking her over to my compact fridge, which, in my homey style, I have decorated with pictures of my nieces and nephews when they were younger.

She started pointing at each face and asking "'s that?

"That's Emily," I'd say.

"'S that?"

"Michael."

And so on. When we'd get to the end, she'd start over. Pretty soon, the whole class was watching me teach her my nieces' and nephews' names.

I am sure that, if nothing else, everyone in our class now has those names memorized.