Yesterday I got the chance to visit with my two and a half year old niece. She is a big sister now and I made a point of spending the whole time just focusing on her. I didn’t even hold her four month old sister once. This took a lot of willpower but the rewards were great.
At one point she was sitting on her bed with her bazillion stuffed animal playing with a special cat. She announced “We need to sing a cat song!” I said I don’t know a cat song, you sing one. And so she did. She started making up on the spot this amazing cat song (I might be bias. I am Auntie Q) complete with arm movements. I watched with joy and wondered when did I stop creating cat songs on the spot. She continued until the song took the cat over a mountain and then a dog started to eat the cat. We discovered that the only way to keep the dog from eating the cat was for me to make pancakes at her play kitchen in her room and feed them to the dog. I had to get the skillet out of the sink, put the skillet on the burner, which by the way was in the freezer. And then of course I had to flip the pancake so it was cooked on both sides before offering it to the dog. This had to be repeated about ten times all while the two of us moved frantically around the room and laughing uncontrollably.
This chaos was divine. When did I forget this? When did I forget to make up songs about cats on the spot? Oh, how grateful I am for my niece and for her inviting me into her world. For her inviting me back into my own.
Quanita
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