Friday, July 22, 2016

The Last Time

Growing up, one of my favorite movies (if not THE favorite) was "The Chipmunk Adventure" starring Alvin and the Chipmunks. Hey, no judgement on the taste of a young toddler. We all had our moments of regret (hello, 90s fashion).

Anyway, for Emerson's birthday a few years ago I bought her a copy of this movie on the off chance she might like it too. She watched it once or twice, then got bored of it very quickly.

Fast forward 18 months, and my growing, vocabulary-expanding-by-the-day sweet princess Anna finds The Chipmunk Adventure and loses her mind. This girl loves the Chipmunks, and this discerning mama (who at this point cannot stand their terrible high-pitched voices) loves that she loves it. I love the innocence of my girls. They laugh and laugh at jokes that aren't funny, they love bubbles like I love coffee, and they're just so happy all the time.

Anyway, there's one song in particular in the Chipmunk Adventure called "My Mother." It's about needing your mother (you see, they sing it to a baby penguin who's been stolen from his family and shipped off to Egypt. Very upsetting). Anyway, my Anna-boo cannot get enough of this song. She makes me rewind it again and again and again.... and again.


And almost every night, she makes me sing "Da Mudder" song (as she calls it) to her before she goes to sleep. And not just one line, but the whole thing. While I sing it to her, she plays with my hair or my face, smiles, giggles, sings along with me, or all of the above.

There are some nights when I think "This song AGAIN?? Do you really want Mommy to sing that whole song AGAIN??"

But then I remember that this time could very well be the last time.

You see, I know there will come a day, probably not so far in the future, when Anna won't want me to sing to her at night. She won't want me to tuck her in. She won't want to play with my hair and face, and in fact probably won't even make eye contact with me, unless it's rolling her eyes at something I said.


So every night, you bet your bottom dollar I am going to sing that damn song.

Because I will never know what the "last time" for this special moment between me and my youngest daughter will be, and these are moments which I treasure more than anything in the world, I would rather spend 2.5 extra minutes a day singing a song that I'm sick of, hoping that some day Anna will remember this and will share these moments with her family too.