The Cost of Silence

I love playing with my daughter. At four, she’s creative and curious and she never fails to surprise me. We play dress up, tell jokes, perform magic, and cook all sorts of treats in her kitchen. We play outside, with bugs, leaves, the swing set, whatever strikes her at any given moment.

We sing. We laugh. We dance and we tumble. She's a princess, and sure, I’m getting older, but I still make a good steed.

More recently, as she nears five years-old, sometimes, especially after a busy day, she’ll go off in her room, or any room, and things get quiet.

Occasionally, I’ll try to come in and join her only to have her shoo me away, tell me it’s a surprise.

Hmm. What's a surprise? There’s no telling what she’s cooking up, but in these little gaps of silence, I’ll talk to my wife. We catch up on our lives in two-minute intervals—think speed dating for parents. Bella will hum along to herself in the sunroom while I ask my wife about her day. I tell her about mine. Sometimes our twelve-year-old son will join us, and for that short little span, and yeah, I’ll admit, it can be pleasant.

It's surprising how much of a presence a little four-year-old person can be. Though no fault of her own, she’s demanding, a force to be reckoned with. She kind of runs things. So when she's quiet, or off playing by herself, it's nice to have a moment and catch my breath.  

But there is a price to pay.

The silence means Bella is busy. She’s building, creating, constructing, upheaving…

After two, maybe three or four minutes, I get to my feet to go check in on things. Walking in, I stumble over a chair, regain my balance only to slip on the fifty or so crayons splayed across the floor. Stickers adorn the walls, graffiti covers her desk, and as I cut a path through the scatter of bowls, cups, utensils, plastic fruit from her play kitchen, I marvel at the spread: open books, magazines, a pile of discarded dresses, dolls, (is that a popsicle?), stuffed animals, a pack of scantily clad Barbie Dolls. All of this stands between me and my daughter, who is still humming to herself as she uses a marker to draw on her arm.

A tornado of activity, the word “how” forms on my lips before my daughter looks up.

“It’s not ready yet, Daddy.”

I start to ask what is not ready. I think about cleaning up. Then I look back at my daughter, who holds her tattooed arm up triumphantly. “Look, it’s a flower.”

She clutches a marker in her other hand. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

"You want one?"

Another look at the mess. It can wait. I clear a place in the wreckage and sit down beside her. I roll up my sleeve and smile. “Sure.”