lit­tle memories

So as we’re putting them to bed (I am ashamed to say we still sing to Avery every night before she goes to sleep; my New Year’s res­o­lu­tion is to put a plan in effect to phase out the rit­u­al before she goes to col­lege). Avery says, “Last night, Annabelle tried to sing the whole of all the songs to me and she does­n’t know all the words.” “Avery!” I exclaimed. “How many of the words to [try­ing des­per­ate­ly to think of some­thing she might have heard occa­sion­al­ly but not all the time] ‘Drei­dl, drei­dl, drei­dl,’ do you know?” “Well [she says defen­sive­ly], ‘drei­dl, drei­dl, drei­dl…’ ” Explo­sions of laugh­ter as it’s clear this is as far as her mem­o­ry goes!

Annabelle chimes in, “I’m pret­ty good with your night­time songs. I’ve heard them enough. ‘Over in Kil­lar­ney…’ ” I thought of the dozens of sleep­overs at our house, and Annabelle’s house, over the sev­en or so years that they have been friends. I remem­ber that this pic­ture was tak­en at the East­er just after Annabelle turned four: we have always spent East­er dye­ing eggs with Annabelle, just as Avery has spent every Han­nukah light­ing can­dles and play­ing drei­dl, and Annabelle has come to dec­o­rate our Christ­mas tree, and we have come to Passover din­ner (where the mat­zoh ball soup includes aspara­gus, lucky us).

John and I just looked at each oth­er over their heads and wished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly for them to stay for­ev­er as hap­py as they are tonight, to be as pro­tect­ed, and to have each oth­er to turn to, gig­gling, when­ev­er the need might arise…