This morning, I was put in charge of ironing Butterfly’s skirt.  There are two reasons for this.  (1) I’m slightly OCD, so Kelley’s knows that I’ll be very meticulous when ironing and (2) Kelley doesn’t do ironing.  The second one probably had the biggest impact on how I ended up in front of the narrow table with the hot iron.

As I pressed the metal to the delicate cloth, Butterfly played on the floor and started singing a song.  I didn’t recognize it, so I asked her where it came from.  I wasn’t surprised to hear that it’s a part of a Disney movie.  This one in particular was “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”  She told me about how much Quasimodo wanted to be a part of the festival and then he sang the song that she was singing to me.  I though that this would be a good opportunity to dispense some social wisdom.

daddy“You know, Quasimodo didn’t look very pretty, but he was nice, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, he liked Esmerelda!”
“We should remember that even though people look different than us, it is important to give them a chance to see how nice they can be.”  (This was my lesson to her.  See how I did that?)
“Hey, Daddy….They put Quasimodo in chains and tried to get Esmerelda, but Quasimodo broke the chains and saved her!”
“Oh.  So Quasimodo was strong and nice.” (I was trying to reinforce my point.)
“Yeah, Daddy.  He was very strong and very nice.  Just like you!”

I have to admit that I was flattered.  Of course, we didn’t discuss wether or not the disfigurement applied to me, but I think that being very strong and very nice would more than make up for the fact if it did.