Along with the whole "twin speak" thing, my girls have created a few of their own rituals. Last winter, I realized that Ava kept singing the same tune with non-sense words. Pretty soon, Bettina caught on and then they both would sing this made up tune with made up words (since their vocabulary was quite small then, it made sense they just created these words). It seemed a lullaby of sorts that, typically, Ava would sing to her "Ee-aw", her favorite donkey-shaped lovie.
It was only natural that I'd want to participate in and recognize their unspoken world, so, soon, I also would start singing the song and learned to articulate their made up words as well as they did. They seemed pleased that I wanted to sing their song too, and allowed me sing with them about things that they valued: beloved Ee-aw and cherished Moo (Bettina's cow-shaped lovie).
Ah-la-lo-le (fill in the blank),
Ah-la-lo-le (fill in the blank),
Ah-la-lo-le (fill in the blank),
Ah-la-lo-le (fill in the blank).
That ritual morphed into an evening quiet-time song that marked the transition from bath/pajama time to bed time - a time when we would recount all that we'd done and all we'd seen during the day and acknowledge the blessings of having seen or done them:
Ah-la-lo-le swimming,
Ah-la-lo-le Daddy,
Ah-la-lo-le Ee-Aw,
Ah-la-lo-le Moo.
One by one, we'd recount all the loved things/ones and Mommy would pause between each stanza waiting for one of the girls to think of something/one for which to be thankful.
This week, we lost Daddy's daddy, Nonno, to cancer. We'd sung to Nonno in the past, almost nightly, but Tuesday night, I told the kids that this time, Nonno (who's been hard of hearing for a long time) could hear us singing; he was listening to us from heaven and for the first time, he could hear our nightly ritual and was smiling as he heard his name.
The girls did pretty well during the rosary and funeral, which were both, according the Italian Catholic tradition, open casket. During the rosary service, Ava walked over to him, climbed up on the kneeling chair and pointed to Nonno saying, "Nonno's sleeping in the bed." "Does he look cozy?" I asked. "Uh-huh,' she answered. Tina, clearly interested now, came over too. "Night, night, Nonno," she added and instantly started singing the Ah-la song: "Ah-la-lo-le Nonno...." I motioned to Paul who I think caught his breath and teared up as he looked lovingly to his little girls.
Night, night, Nonno. Love and memories last forever; we love you and will keep you in our memories.
