The first song I ever sang to Alessi when she was a baby was “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

My wife and I were watching TV one night and there was Shirley Maclaine singing that song in a movie.

So I looked at Alessi, who was cradled in my arms, and sang it to her. As soon as I got through "Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street," she started to sing along.

Her lyrics were gibberish, of course, but she managed to get into the rhythm of the song.

I did make sure though that we didn't just happen to open our mouths at the same time.

For all I know, her baby talk could have meant: "Shut up, you idiot. I'm trying to get some sleep here."

So I stopped singing. And she also stopped babbling. I went on singing and she started up again. My wife and I stared at each other googly-eyed.

It seemed our little experiment worked.

In the hospital room, shortly after Alessi was born, I played some classical music.

And at home, I would play the same music in our bedroom near her crib.

So among the first bits of music she ever heard was Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5."

Years later, when she was five, Alessi would stand all alone on the stage of the Fil-Am Life Auditorium and do her take on Lea Salonga's "Lupa."

She sang as if she'd been doing it all her life. At her age, I would have peed in my pants – AFTER I had been dragged on to the stage and had my shoes nailed to the floor.

Anyway, that was part of the four-hour recital of the entire class of the Henry Martin School of Music, which she attended for the summer with Ani, her older sister.

Now Ani doesn't want me to write about her.

She's now 16. Go figure. So that's all I'm going to say about her number, except that she did do Smokey Mountain's "Paraiso," complete with doo-wop backup singers.

Alessi by then was already forming her own musical preferences.

Her favorite song – in fact, her very first – was "Don't Speak" by No Doubt. She would listen to it over and over again and sing along, belting out the words, which she picked up on her own.

I doubt though if she understood what the song really meant, smart as she was. I could have explained it to her, but then that was hardly the age to teach her about romantic disillusionment.

So I just showed her how to run the CD player because I got tired of hitting the replay button.

Then as if to get back at me for all that Mozart and Beethoven, she went through a Maroon 5 phase and now she's also into Guns N Roses.

I'd hate to keep hitting the replay button for those groups, not for a hundred times a song, anyway.

But speaking of disillusionment, romantic or otherwise, that's one thing parents wouldn't want their kids to have to go through.

And I wish Alessi would be able to get over any disillusionments that may come her way and keep her capacity for wonder for even the simplest things.

I keep remembering her as she was a few months before her Fil-Am Life recital.

On the night of her fifth birthday, she had this big party on the front lawn of the Magnolia House, with all the goodies, including a clown and a magician, and there was a playground to romp around in with her little guests.

The next day I picked her up to stay with me for a few days, as my wife and I were separated by then.

Her first words as she came out through the gate was: "Papa, that was the best party I've ever attended."

She was raving like she herself was a guest at her own party.

I chuckled and said: "Well, at your age, how many parties have you attended anyway?"

I figured that the number would come to about ten. So it wouldn't really be a strain to pick out the best she'd ever been to.

But suddenly at that moment I felt like a kid myself. She reminded me how exciting it was to have a party at that age.

And at this very moment, as I write this, I'm imagining how excited she must be again as she sits in class waiting to get home to celebrate her 11th birthday.

It's exam week, my wife tells me, so the the ice cream and cake for her classmates would have to wait.

But where does all the time go?

Two more years and she'd be stepping onto another kind of stage.

It's called adolescence, and as we all know, that's when romantic disillusionment can have the same devastating effect as a face full of pimples.

Now as teenage dilemmas go, the key question here, if I remember correctly, is this: Would she prefer disillusionment to pimples?

I guess she'd have to ask her more experienced sister about that part.

In the meantime, all I wish is for her to stick to the sunny side of the street.