I openly admit it — sometimes I try to artificially manufacture special moments with my daughters.
Take today. We were sitting on the Lazy Boy in their room, and “Everything I Own” by Bread came on my iPhone. (Don’t judge.) I sat there singing this song to them, thinking how wonderful a Tuesday afternoon, cuddling on a chair with my beautiful daughters was. I was thinking how sweet it was and how this is exactly why I stay home with them. I thought surely this moment would sear itself deep inside their consciousness and make them better people because of it.
Except that perhaps that wasn’t exactly how the situation went down. Perhaps I only had music playing on my phone because the Goose was crying hysterically after waking up from her nap and wouldn’t calm down for anything. Perhaps she was on my lap because it was the only place I knew she wouldn’t hurt herself by thrashing around. And perhaps Magoo was quite irritable because she had been woken up mid-dream by the Goose’s ear piercing screams, and perhaps she kept saying, “Can I go downstairs puleeeeeese” between whimpers while the Goose desperately tried to eat my phone whole.
And maybe that’s how things really went down. But I don’t think I will remember it that way. I think instead I will remember the special moment. Not because it necessarily happened, but because it could have happened, and because just the fact that it could have happened filled me with such tenderness and joy that it might as well have happened.
And perhaps the most important question to come of all of this is how I have been a mother for over four years and a sappy music lover for decades and yet I never realized just how perfect “Everything I Own,” is a perfect song from a mama to her daughters. Well, except for the part where the beloved leaves, but I selectively edit that part out when I sing it to the girls.