Belated But Nonetheless Heartfelt

alita focused 062007
Originally uploaded by kizzzbeth.

Last month Alita turned 6. We went out for sushi and I brought cake, the same cake I've made for all of her birthdays thus far.

I brought both of my cameras. The digital for safety's sake and the recently unearthed film camera for fun. You can see all of the film shots in my Flickr photostream (link at right).

Once you've seen all the photos you'll see that my technical skills aren't exactly blowing you out of the water yet. But my composition has a little merit. This photo, though, is little more than a lucky grab and it's my absolute favorite of the bunch.

Somehow this moment encapsulates who my girl is at 6. She has a focused, incisive inquisitiveness to her now along with a blossoming sense of humor. She's more sure of herself and more interested in sticking her long skinny limbs into as many different situations as she can find.

Last month after her dance recital we walked to her favorite Park Slope restaurant. She wanted to run and we were headed up the slope so I employed the special opps tactics of thousands of generations of adults before me and threatened to chase her...until she turned around so I could walk again and not have my heart explode. Every time she turned back to check on me, though, I had to bring several tens of thousands of dollars worth of acting training to bear to make it look like I was moments away from putting on the burst of speed that would bring me abreast of her. We went on like this for about 10 blocks. It took her parents 5 minutes to catch up to us at the restaurant.

It was fun. It's always fun. But somewhere on the slope I realized that the time is drawing nigh. It won't be long before she figures out both that she's faster than I am and that I've been fudging reality (i.e. cheating) to keep that information from her. I don't think she'll be disappointed in me but she may point and laugh hysterically.