Soppit

I can't get through Love You Forever without crying. I am sure that if I had encountered it pre-kids I would have thought it was too creepy for words. The idea of my MIL driving over to our house with a ladder tied to the top of the car so she could climb in the window -- no. Just no. But I had kids first, and so it always leaves me verklempt.

Yesterday I started reading it to one of the kids, and as I read siblings kept drifting over to listen. When I got to the dying mom page I had to stop, of course, because I was choked up. "Oh, yeah," said one of the older boys. "Mom always cries in this one." "Like with Clown of God," another chimed in. Which is exactly right -- that's the other one that always gets me.

I sing the mom's song to a particular tune, a musical phrase that ends still sounding like there's another line coming. I do it that way on purpose, because loving your children isn't the kind of job you finish. Finally, at the end when the son sings to his daughter, I resolve the melody. I figure that's when I'll know I've taught them what I hoped to, when I see them passing it on to their own children.

So yesterday I was taking a little longer than usual to get un-choked-up and my 11yo jumped in to help me out. He picked up where I left off in the text, and then he sang the song the same way I do it. This left me even choked-uppier, because that's what it's all about, am I right? He sang the song!

In the middle of the the song, though, the toddler whacked him on the shoulder and yelled "Soppit!" [stop it, in case that's not clear]. We all burst out laughing, even the whack-ee. It seemed perfect to me: there's no opportunity to be overly sentimental around here, because the reality-ward yankings are frequent and potent.

(I am so sleepy. I want to finish this post before I go to bed, but the cost is going to be phrases like "reality-ward yankings.")

This morning I was dozing in bed when Pete brought me Love You Forever. Pointing to the cover picture, the one with the 2yo boy, he said, "Will you read up to this page?" "Sure," I said, "but why do you want to stop there?" And he said -- oh, I can't believe how sweet that boy is -- he said, "Because it makes me sad to see you cry."

I hugged him and said that sometimes good truths make us cry just like sad truths do, but that I don't mind crying about good truths. I said we could read as much as he wanted, and I dove in.

More kids drifted into our room as I read, and everybody sang along when it was time to sing. Except there's a new version of the song now: you get to the middle and you yell "Soppit!!" in a peevish toddler voice. We were all laughing all the way through, and at the end one of the boys said, "Look, Mom, you don't have to cry when you read it now. We made it so you can laugh instead!"