The Farmer Takes a Wife

Isis has been singing for quite some time now. She repeats the tunes and phrases to just about any song she hears. She has no idea what half of them mean but she will prance around the house naked singing, "Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the crowd....." Or more recently she has memorized, "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, that's my name too..." It's funny to hear a two year old say four syllable words.



I don't even stop to think about what these songs mean, let alone what she must be thinking these songs mean. Why is Little Bunny Foo Foo bopping all these animals on the head? And what, pray tell, in the world is a goon? Why does Aiken Drum have hair made of spaghetti? What will the monkey do if he ever catches that darned weasel?



Well for this week her new favorite is The Farmer in the Dell. She sings it. She makes me illustrate it on her marker board. Her babies come up and point to the characters. We listen to it every time we get in the car. It recently occurred to me that she thinks these characters are real. And tonight she met the "wife" and I think she was just as impressed with this as a child who meets Cinderella at Disney World. Only this wife is not famous. She is a waitress as Ruby Tuesday.



Rewind. We have a friend named Schaeffer. He is an organic farmer who sells his produce at our local farmers market. During the summer, Isis and I go to the market and buy eggs from "Farmer Schaeffer." Well apparently Farmer Schaeffer took a liking to a nearby jewelry vendor and they are getting married. This jeweler also works at Ruby Tuesday.



Play. So we decided to go out for dinner tonight. When Isis saw us talking to the waitress, she wanted to know "Who is that girl?" Hmmmmm. Well, I went on to explain that her name is Melanie and she is going to marry Farmer Schaeffer. She is going to be his wife.



Well, I think about a hundred light bulbs went on inside her little brain and she very emphatically replied, "The farmer takes a wife!" But I think more importantly this silly song actually become very real and very important to her because for the rest of our dinner she kept asking, "Where is the wife? Where is her?" In between bites she would sing, "Hi ho the dairy-oh the farmer takes a wife." Suddenly, this song was making sense.

As a parent, I cannot help but feel proud when she makes these little connections... when something in her world suddenly makes sense in our big world and there is a moment of learning. I do however sympathize with Melanie, who will for an undetermined amount of time, be addressed as "the wife." I just hope Isis doesn't begin to wonder when she will take a child.