I was delighted when she went through a harp-playing phase. It was beautiful while it lasted but left us with an expensive harp when she moved on to other things. Well, there was no way I was going to let that investment just sit there. So, I decided to learn to play too. I reasoned that it wouldn’t be very hard because I already play the piano (sort of) and the harp is just a sideways piano.

Oh, my word. On a scale of one to ten, if a piano is a two then a harp is about a 14. One problem is that fingers are simply not made to move the way they need to for this. It’s like rubbing your head and patting your stomach but worse. Try this: hold your hands sideways in front of you, fingers curling naturally with the thumb facing up. Now pretend to pluck two strings gracefully using only your second and fourth fingers without moving anything else. Thumbs up! Now faster!

I had been struggling with lessons for a while when Catherine came to visit. I showed her the impossible piece that I was working on. “Let me try,” she said. Then she sat down and played it off hand like a virtuoso. My heart bursting with pride, there could be only one response: “Go to your room.”

I had expected to pass on some traits. Obviously she was going to be a big reader and she got Dave’s hair rather than mine, thank goodness. But we passed on some really random stuff too.

Here’s a weird one. We were at the zoo looking at the monkeys. I like all animals, but for whatever reason, monkeys aren’t my favorite. Still, I was perfectly willing to hang out and let her look all she wanted. After about a minute, she asked,

“Do you want to stay and look some more?”

“Don’t you?”

“Well, I’m good to stay as long as you want to, but monkeys aren’t my favorite.”

“Really? They’re not my favorite either. Why don’t you like them?”

“I don’t know. They’re cute and all, but there’s just something about them. Why don’t you like them?”

“I really don’t know. But I feel exactly the same way.”

Where did she pick that up? Dave likes monkeys just fine, and we never skipped them at the zoo. I read her the “Curious George” books when she was little. Monkeys don’t come up that often in daily life, and I don’t feel strongly anti-monkey. Odd.

Traits skip through the generations as well. My grandfather was a physicist and passed on his math genius to all of his children. As far as I know, all of my cousins are bright with numbers.

Me? I got cabbage.

I like raw cabbage salads better than the leafy green kind and eat quite a bit of it. I thought it was just a personal quirk, until I learned that my grandpa had type 1 diabetes and ate lots of cabbage every day to help cope. It must have worked because he lived a good long life. I wish he would have passed along some other traits, at least the other healthy eating habits, but no. I picked up all other food preferences from the German side of the family so it’s milk, cheese, butter, bread and wurst all the way.

I don’t know what all other weird traits we have passed along to our poor daughter. But it’s good to know that we can make a good case for blaming all of them on our ancestors. The good things are obviously entirely due to my excellent character and superb parenting.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.