Lullabies

Jeremy and I have been watching Grace and Emmy learn to love each other. It's so comical and sweet and endearing. They shriek with joy at each other morning, noon, and night. I had to go back to having them nap separately because they would just stand in their cribs and laugh at each other until they got cranky and overtired and started screaming. If either one is hurt and cries, the other one usually starts crying, too.

The other night in the car, after we'd stayed at the restaurant a little too long, Emmy was working herself up to a rage fit on the way back to the hotel. Grace leaned over, stretched out her hand, and said, "Hey hey hey," the same way I do when Emmy falls and bumps her head, and I'm bending down to pick her up.

I've made up bedtime songs for both girls. Not really intentionally. They just sort of happened. Neither one is sophisticated or even terribly original, but each daughter has one of her own. Grace's is markedly more interesting and melodic. If we have a child or two more, the last one will be stuck with grunts and jazz hands.

But it goes like this: "Emmeline, Emmeline, I love you, Emmeline, you're so sweet, Emmeline, I love you."

Tonight Emmy was fighting sleep harder than usual. There was more fussing after we put her down than there has been in a while (they mostly just laugh until they pass out an hour or so later). Jeremy came running into our room a few minutes ago and gestured me over. We leaned our ears against the door to the girls' room to hear Grace singing (tunelessly), "Emmeline, you're so sweet, Emmeline, Emmeline, you're so sweet, Emeline, love you, you're so sweet, Emmeline," over and over. She kept it up for at least twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.

They say kids don't learn things like (real, unselfish) love and empathy until they're much older, but I don't buy it. These two are nuts about each other.