a tape recorder, a calculator and a fife, yes … confetti, no

Our daughter DD was always a pretty creative kid.  And when she was about 10 years old she surprised me with this little talent I didn’t know she had.

She had been busy up in her room for a while.  Then she came down to the kitchen where I was working, carrying her tape recorder and the hand-carved fife we had bought for her at a local festival.

She plugged in the tape recorder and said, “Listen to this!”  She pushed “Play” on the tape recorder and then put the fife to her lips.  When the song Chariots of Fire started playing, she played along on her fife.

That was very nice, but who was playing the song on the tape recorder and what instrument had they used?

She then told me she had discovered that, because each key on a calculator played a tone, she could play a song on it.  So she used her tape recorder to record herself playing Chariots of Fire on the calculator and then she had the idea to accompany her recording on her fife!  I was much more impressed after I heard that!  What a fun surprise it was that our very young daughter had been so inventive.

DD was a child who loved to treat us to little surprises like this.  I remember another time she came down and asked me to come up to the spare bedroom for a surprise.  When I got upstairs the door was closed.  When I opened it, she “surprised” me by throwing a grocery bad full of tiny pieces of paper she had torn up into the air so that it “rained” confetti.  That surprise ended up not being as much fun for her as she had thought.  After I recovered from the confetti rain, I told her that that was very nice, but she would have to now pick up all the tiny pieces of paper.

When you’re a clever think-outside-the-box little girl, some times when you surprise your family with your creativity are bound to be more successful that others.

I love you DD.  And I loved most of your clever-little-girl surprises, but the confetti, not so much.