Chimps with Ukuleles

Dear Daughter,

Here is a lovely song from Joseph Arthur.

This long weekend you finally worked out how to turn yourself around on to your stomach. The tricky part was your arm and I realised also your head. Once I worked out that you could do it if you just raised your head I gave you a few little nudges so you could understand what needed to be done. Soon after you started doing it yourself. You made such a racket working it all out. When you turned on your own the look on your face was unforgettable. It was almost triumphant. It feels really good seeing you progress along.

I learnt the song 'I'll see you in my dreams' on the Ukulele.
I love that song. You really love when I play to you. Your face just lights up, it is so lovely to be able to sing to you and make you happy. I spend heaps of time with you when I am home. I am very lucky that I can. Actually I shouldn’t be modest about this, its because I DO rather than I can.

You really enjoy sitting in your rocker in the kitchen and watching us do housework. I think you like watching all the hustle and bustle. I was listening to a talk on why humans took that next step and left the apes behind. They did studies with 2 1/2 years old and chimpanzees, giving them the same tasks. It works out that chimps can remember where food is much better but the children will learn how to do tasks in new ways by mimicking. The chimps will always stick to the old way of doing tasks despite being shown. Its interesting stuff really. Somewhere along the line the concept of improvement was applied to learning. Im sure we will see the perfect example of this in you over the coming years. Lets hope you get as smart as this fella


Love Dad

Flipped out

Dear Daughter,

Exciting news - you flipped over. From front to back and first nearly back to front, so close. Its amazing watching as you slowly work things out bit by bit. You were using the gym as foot leverage. You were getting frustrated and crying. Mum was telling me to help you but I said to give you a bit more time. Life is about getting through these struggles and dealing with it. That lesson needs to start early. I knew you werent too upset. Eventually I gave you just a little nudge as it was long enough. I got video footage of it.



Love Dad

24th October 2007

We watched a wonderful film called 'Once'. Your Mum says the guys reminds her of me. I cant see that really myself. Similar songwriting style I guess. Its about an Irish busker caught in a rut. A girl comes along and helps him to get out of his funk and start living his dream. It’s a heartbreaking movie but if it ends up that you don’t write songs yourself, this movie will definitely help explain what it feels like to write one, I totally associated with the imagery. When you write a song you do often hear the arrangement in your head. I have been writing songs since I was about 16 or 15 from memory. I would have forgotten or lost the tapes of many of them over the years. But I don’t think you should hold on to old work anyway, its like keeping a pair or pants that you don’t fit into anymore and they have a split in the back anyway. It was very organic how I started writing. I learnt the basic guitar, listened to lots of songs and started strumming them. Eventually I think I just started putting music to my poems which I was writing a lot of. Your Mum reckons I would mimic whoever I was into at the time and it wasn’t until a few years ago or even less that she felt that I was making my own sound. Now I am very proud of the fact that I really don’t sound like anyone else. I can not imagine someone covering many of my songs and I still can’t figure out how a band could arrange them. I have this fantasy that I have written to a heap of big producers and set them a challenge to record my music.

It also makes me think about how I will approach your learning new skills. I doubt that I will be very lenient with you regarding giving up on things. I will try to keep check on that. Its my feeling that it takes years to build up skills in things so the sooner you start the happier you will be when you hit your late 20's and will actually start reaping the benefits. I think I will push for your learning a language right away, a musical instrument, a sport, writing stories, art at home and exploring a science together. It really comes down more to us than you in making this happen. This is all idealism I know and the reality may prove vastly different. But then I always love challenging that belief. I think consistency enables these things to be actualised.