Acting Naturally

I have two daughters and as any father, I believe they are the most beautiful and gifted kids in the whole world.

We have a play/office room where the kids play and where the family computer resides.

I go there often when my little one is playing dolls and it would be impossible to work on my computer without being distracted by her play.

For one thing, she speaks out loud all the characters. 

As an adult, I would say she speaks by herself, but watching her I don’t believe that’s true. 

Her characters are so well developed and they have the most fantastic, imaginable dialogs.

It is impossible for me not to crack up, at which point she realizes that I’m not working on my computer so she comes over to me and ask me if I want to play.

To be honest, playing dolls is not my favorite thing by far, but how can I say no?

The thing I dread the most is that I always get to be the prince and no matter how hard I try, I always screw it up. 

She always has to correct me. “Dad that’s not the way you do it!”

As you might have noticed from my early posts, I’m not one person that lacks imagination but compared with hers, I got nothing.

My older daughter doesn’t play with dolls; she never had – thank God.

She loves reading and playing videogames and she loves her stuffed animals, but not to play just to sleep with them.

She also loves acting and singing and my wife has even got her an agent.

I go along with this acting gig, just because they both enjoy it and have fun and they do not take it too seriously.

Part of the acting career is going to acting shops, which once I had the pleasure of getting stuck with.

There were several kids going on a stage doing their little act. Some of them were happy, some were frightened, some memorized their lines and some had no clue. You know, kids! After the kids, the acting coach got on the stage and explained to the kids how they are going to learn “how to act naturally”.

Is acting naturally an oxymoron, or is just me? I mean isn’t acting the opposite of natural and spontaneous? How can you be spontaneous on queue?

Anyway, what he really meant is that he’s going to teach the kids to act like what other people believe naturally should be like. Which means to teach them to act un naturally.

I have a confession to make. I like to talk to myself. I don’t have the courage to do it in public or in front of my kids – I usually take my dog for a walk when I get the urge to act out my thoughts. I also thought of buying one of those blue tooth thingies that you put in your year, although I do not have a cellular but it would be just the perfect excuse for having a conversation.

I find it ironic that we are teaching our kids to act naturally when we as adults are nothing but a bucket full of inhibitions, anxieties, and phobias. It should be just the other thing around. We should learn from them.

I am learning a lot from my daughters. I am getting better on being spontaneous just being around them.

I just wish I didn’t get to be the prince all the time.