We can be caught off guard by the power of the spoken word at times. I know I was completely weak in the knees when Anthony said the words "will you marry me". I still love hearing the words "I love you" from him or from family and friends. Words have the ability to stick in your head for the rest of you life. Like the phrase "you are like an old backpack" has been burned in my brain (it's a long story). Some words have become trivial due to overuse : awesome, amazing, totally, just to name a few. Sometimes what's not said speaks loud words that reverberate inside your head. Like the time, when I was dating Anthony, and I called him after returning from a weekend away. I asked him if he missed me and there was a long pause. That precipitated one of our breakups. The tone and volume of words can expand them into huge letters in our mind's eye like someone changed the font size to 32. For instance, tonight Tessa was trying to brush Anthony's hair. She was being rather rough and he asked her to be gentle more than once. Finally, on a particularly bad stroke, he yelled, "OW! Tessa stop that! It hurts!" She sat back from him and stared as if physically struck. After a minute or so, she pulled her knees up to her chin and looked away from Anthony. Her arms were crossed and her brows were drawn together in a concentrated silence. Anthony, sensing he may have hurt her feelings, said he was sorry for yelling at her. She didn't move--didn't blink even. He reached out to touch her hand and she jerked away saying, "Leave me alone! Daddy, don't touch me!". He looked questioningly at me. I asked her if she would like to sit with me and look at a book for a minute. She did, and about three pages into a Finding Nemo board book she looked up and said, "Sorry Daddy." Anthony told her that he was the sorry one. She just repeated her apology--not quite aware of the nuances of the situation. It was sweet and kind of sad.
And since words have such power, I thought it only fitting to include a short video here of Jack's first attempts:
1 comment:
Awesome. ;)
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