Part of Your World

One of the great things about being a girl dad is I’ve had the pleasure of watching The Little Mermaid 1438 times since Ella was born. And for each 24-hour period following each viewing, I’ve been asked to say “Alexa, play Under the Sea” so many times that Alexa eventually says, “Again? Don’t you want to listen to something else?” Or maybe it was Michelle saying that.

Sometimes song lyrics get stuck in my head and I have no control over the song. On a good day, it’s “Free Fallin'” by Tom Petty. On a bad day, it’s “Achy Breaky Heart.” On the worst of days, it’s “Macarena.”  But one set of lyrics runs through my head almost every day –

“Up where they walk, up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin’ free
Wish I could be part of that world”

I can’t get those lyrics out of my head for two reasons: 1. It’s such a catchy tune, and 2. I know how Ariel feels. She just wanted to be in a world different from her own. I want to be a part of a different world, too.

I want to be a part of Audrey’s world, but I always feel like I’m not. I never can tell what is going on inside her little head. What is the world like when you can’t hear anything or tell anyone how you are feeling?

When I see a video like this, I wonder what is going through her head when she plays the piano. Does she actually hear the notes or is there something else going on inside her head? Can she feel any vibrations or is it just fun to bang on the keys? 

She has blown me away with all her accomplishments so far that when she sits down at the piano, I fully expect her to just break into “Great Balls of Fire.”

She is still the happiest little kid I’ve ever seen. She will sit at the table during dinner and suddenly crack herself up. She will grab her walker and start doing laps around the house giggling the entire time. I really want to ask her why she’s so happy. It warms my heart when she giggles and laughs all day, but I wonder if she knows something that I don’t. It pains me that I don’t know and that she can’t tell me.

I always hated seeing my children cry, although when they were babies, it was a standard process to fix the problem. You change their diaper, check their temperature, and then check and see how long it has been since they ate. Then, it’s a simple fix because when a baby cries, it’s almost always because they have a wet diaper, they are sick, or they are hungry.

The pain of watching her cry punches me harder in the chest now that she isn’t a baby anymore. Audrey is four years old now. When she cries, sometimes I have no idea why. Maybe she’s frustrated because a toy is broken. Maybe she’s just lonely because nobody is playing with her. Maybe she’s trying to watch a video during peak hours, and due to the slow wifi all she sees on the screen is “buffering.” That makes me cry, too.

I would love for Audrey to be a part of my world, but that just isn’t in the biological cards, so I’m going to do whatever I can to be a part of hers.