A little songbird

We've been having the pleasure of listening to Ariel sing today. I heard her mumble something while getting her down from her highchair, and she followed it with "hey, hey, hey." The "hey"s were evenly spaced, which made me suspect that she was singing something.

Then again - "Uh um uh-bar, hey, hey, hey."

"Ariel? Are you singing the umbrella song?"

"Hmm. Uh um uh-bar..."

For those of you who haven't spent a lot of time around Ariel lately, "hmm" means "yes." I think she learned it from me, I'm sorry to say. And the song in question is Umbrella by Rihanna, or, in this case, covered by Marie Digby, because that's the version that we listen to on the radio in the car. "Uh um uh-bar" is her attempt at the words "under my umbrella." Apparently I'm not the only one with this song stuck in my head, because we caught her singing it a couple times.



We were also able to prompt her to sing it to us this evening as we drove home, and it was far more lovely than listening to the radio.

I wish I had a video for you, but our camera isn't working, and, even if it was, there's no way that she would perform for it. I wish I could catch each precious moment and save them forever, but Ariel keeps me living life instead of recording it, because I know that pulling out a camera always puts an end to the special moments. She touches my heart a hundred times a day, and all I have to rely on is my already fading memories of each moment. It makes me feel sad and insufficient, knowing that I am incapable of preserving something so precious. Her life runs like water in a faucet, rushing down the drain of time, and though I put my hands out to catch it, I can hold so little and it slips through the cracks in my fingers.

All great joys are bittersweet. I guess that's what keeps us hoping for heaven.