Daddy: Animal, Mineral, Vegetable or…Coconut?
Begin
Once upon a time (again), Magdalena awoke to find herself in the park with the large ones called her Daddy and Tamar.
When the Tamar person held her, everything was okay because Tamar was soft and cuddly and smelled nice and this made Magdalena feel warm and secure and ready for adventures.
In fact, as far as Magdalena was concerned, Tamar could take her to Jupiter and she wouldn't even sniffle because she knew that she would not only know how to get there safely, but would know where all the best places to shop were on the way, where all the Dairy Queens were, and she would know the way back, too. Not only that, she would bring good snacks and fun toys to play with on the trip. Because Magdalena was such a perfect little girl, she could tell all of this just by the way Tamar smiled at her.
This time, though, it was not Tamar that was going to hold her most of the time. The only one that was going to hold her was the big one that was her Daddy. She guessed (correctly) that this was because he needed what was called ‘practice’.
This large one called Daddy was still a little bit confusing to her. She could tell he was kind of nervous. He was also shaped all, well, different than regular humans like her mom and Tamar. He was not soft in the same places Tamar was soft. He also did not have cuddly places in ANY of the right locations. To top it off, he didn’t smell like anything she had ever, ever smelled before. Well, before she had smelled HIM – “Daddy”.
Magdalena decided to let him carry her around without protest this time so she could try to figure this out. Besides, he was singing to her and he sang pretty good.
"Hmmmmm." she thought. He had four things that could be arms and/or legs, and they were kind of hairy on close inspection. He could be a really big dog, or maybe a horse, but then she remembered they didn’t walk around on their hind legs and carry babies. So he probably wasn’t an animal. Or that kind of animal, anyway.
Magdalena grabbed one his fingers and took a bite, or as much of a bite as you can take when you don't have any teeth. Nope. Doesn’t taste like dirt or a rock. So he’s probably not a mineral…
Magdalena took a handful of the cloth that he was covered in and pulled, idly wondering why this large one had to wear a diaper all over his whole body (and she thought she had it bad!) …well, she didn’t know much about vegetables in general, but she didn’t think they wore whole-body diapers. So he probably wasn’t a vegetable.
Then, at that very moment, the large Daddy subject raised her up and put her face right next to his BIG BROWN ROUND HEAD and rubbed his VERY SCRATCHY CHEEK on hers – scritch! scritch! scritch!
“Of course!” exclaimed Magdalena excitedly as she pulled her face back in surprise from the bristly, spiny roundness smiling down at her.
“My Daddy is a Coconut! My Daddy is a Coconut! How exciting! I never knew coconuts could even sing! I wonder if Tamar knows she has taken up with a Scratchy Singing Coconut? Could he be fooling her? When I can talk, I’ll be sure to tell her.”
And with that mystery solved, she smiled up at her Daddy and promptly went to sleep while he sang the lullaby to her that his mom used to sing to him. She did not notice the happy tears that leaked down his cheeks as he watched his daughter sleep, trusting and content, in his arms for the first time.