On Siegfried, Roy and Me

The other weekend my daughter got invited to her first non-family birthday party. (She is such a social butterfly for only being a year and a half.) The three of us drove down to the party, which was a fairly long drive, but made even longer because I have not broken down and bought a GPS system yet. My wife looked up the directions on Trip Finder or some site like that and I wrote them down. My wife drove, I navigated, and we were able to find the party without too much trouble. Well there was one little hiccup but I will discuss that a bit later.

I don't know about you, but sometimes, I miss maps. Do you remember maps? They were wonderful.  I never felt  more like a true navigator than when I held an actual map in my hand. You could follow your progress, plan alternate routes and spend a good deal of time trying to fold the damn things. GPS technology is nice, but unless you know how it works (I usually don't take the time to learn all of the special functions of new gadgets I buy. Sad, I know.) you are just basically listening to a voice tell you where and when to turn. The map on the screen is not very large (even if you blow it up) and just not as simple as having one in your hand. And lets not forget my least favorite word to come out of a GPS system: "Recalculating."

The minor problem we ran into on our way to the party was the fact that the directions we looked up must have been based on the shortest distance, not the quickest or easiest way to get to our destination. If I had been paying a little more attention, I would have caught this fact. Unfortunately I discovered it "en route" and it was too late to make any adjustments. The directions said to get off at exit 14 of the NYS Northway and take a right. If I had thought about it, I would have noted that taking a right would bring us through the city of Saratoga, right near the race track, on the last weekend of the horse racing season. Needless to say, we got caught up in some terrible traffic and arrived 10-15 minutes late.

I do like having a GPS system, don't get me wrong. I will be getting one as soon as I accumulate enough money (and have nothing more important to buy) to purchase one. I have used my sister's on several occasions and thought I would share the two things I love the most about using a GPS system. First, there is the fact that you can change the voice that tells you where to go. I have been told where to go several times in my life; it is nice to have control of the voice that tells you. I love to use the female Australian voice for some reason. "G'day mate, take a left in 500 feet, and throw another shrimp on the barbie." Ok, it doesn't say stuff like that, but it would be pretty funny if it did. What if they had bad foreign stereotype voices as a selection? That would be wrong, but funny. A little old Chinese voice would say, "Most honorable driver. Take reft turn in 500 feet." Then a gong sounds or that little classic Chinese ditty they play in movies and TV shows goes off after every direction update.

The other thing I love is the estimated time of arrival. That is like crack to me. I watch that more than the road sometimes. Whatever the time of arrival is when we first set out becomes the time to beat, like a world record in the Olympics. I try to beat the time by as much as possible. When we had the GPS unit with us on a long trip my wife constantly heard me say things like "Shoot, I am 5 minutes behind, I can make that up." or "Okay, were half an hour ahead, let's hit the rest stop and make it quick. I don't want to lose my lead." I start treating rest stops like pit stops in NASCAR, watching the clock, and rushing people along. Pathetic. It may seem ridiculous at times, but it is things like this that help a long trip go by quicker.

But anyway, now that I went off on a long tangent about GPS vs. maps, lets get back to my original topic. We arrived at the party and it took a little bit for my daughter to warm up and get used to all the strange adults and kids. Not that I am saying they were strange, just new to her (and me for that matter, as the party was for the son of my wife's friend that she knew in Seattle). Once she got settled in and comfortable, she turned on the charm and was having a great time. That is when I started to get my Siegfried and Roy on. No, I did not have her mauled by a tiger. (Yes, anyone who knows me saw a tasteless joke like this coming. Well it probably was not tasteless for the tiger, I'm sure Roy was delicious! Okay, I apologize for that one too.) It was time to show off all her tricks.

First we had to pull out my favorite, her Count von Count impression. Yes, she has one! Whenever she sees the count or we set her up with some Count style counting, she will provide her Eeh Eeh Eeh. Then it was on to her Old MacDonald. If you sing Old MacDonald, she will provide the e i e i o. She sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Though most of the time she uses "dada" for all of the words but it almost sounds like she says "up above" at the appropriate part. The ABC song is coming along and she does hit some of the letters at the right time (the rest of the letters are all "da"). She loves to sing, and it is always amazing how well she gets the melodies correct for the songs she sings. She dances and loves to stack things. She uses just about any object as a telephone and answers it with a "Hewwo?" She is adorable. (And I am biased!)

Here is Gabby stacking blocks on the cat.

I ran her through her routine and she did great. I often have trouble getting her to perform in front of other people. When we get stopped by people in the store and they talk to her she gets all shy and won't do anything. Then I feel like an idiot. "Really, she can say Hi and Bye. She even gives a little queen wave." I tell them and of course she does it when they are out of sight. But at the party she had enough time to get comfortable, so she was on fire. People commented how cute she was and how smart she was. I was so proud. The party ended and we headed home. Now that I knew where we were, I took a much easier and direct route home.

After we were home for a while I began to reflect on the party. I had to ask myself a question: Why do we as parents feel the need to show off what our children can do? I am not the only one who does this, as other people have done the same thing to me many times. I do not mean to imply that exhibiting your child's skills is necessarily a negative thing, but what is it in our nature that makes us do it?

It is wonderful to be proud of your child, no matter what their age, and to want others to see how special they are. I sometimes question the motivations for showing off a child's skills to others, however. (This includes my motivations as well.) Children, particularly babies, don't generally care what others think about them; they are more excited by the reaction they get for successfully performing their tricks. Therefore, if you are treating your child like a seal at Seaworld because you love them and want others to see how proud you are of them that they can do something that you think is amazing, then you are doing it for the right reasons.

I don't think this is the motivation for too many parents, however. Some people seem to think that life is a competition and other children and adults are their opponents. It's the reason why we have shows like Toddlers &Tiaras. (I have never watched the show, and never will, because just from the trailers and photos I've seen, I would probably break my TV as I tried to punch the parents through the screen.) Some parents seem to get off on showing how much better their child is than yours and are quick to take all the credit for their child's accomplishments. They are the parents who are telling you how they are prepping their child for Harvard at age 2 because they are soooo brilliant. Thankfully, most of the people I know share my views on the subject.

I am not sitting on the floor with a Count doll three hours a day practicing and pushing her to perfect her impression. I do not have a box of cookies that I am using to teach her to do a Ted Knight laugh. I am not watching the Dog Whisperer and jotting down techniques that Cesar is using, to try on my daughter. I just enjoy watching her develop, learn and experience new things. I love watching her figure things out and discover new talents. Right now she is trying to figure out talking and it is amazing. You know she is trying to say something important, but she looks right at you and a stream of gibberish pours from her mouth.

Though I love the fact that she can do all of these amazing things, (well, amazing to me, because it seems like just yesterday she wasn't even crawling or saying a word), that is as far as it goes. I am not going to say she is the smartest kid ever or start making plans for her to go to Juliard. I will not compare her to other kids and criticize her or others for what they can or cannot do. Though you have to admit, a Count Von Count impression is pretty cool! Can your kid do one? I didn't think so! Gabby 1, Your kid 0! We win, woohooo!