Do You Hear What I Hear?

It's early in the morning, in a mostly sleeping house. My three year old is dozing on the couch next to me, while I watch the one and only Oprah episode I have ever recorded, the one featuring Michael Pollan and the documentary Food, Inc. If I don't watch it now, at 6:30am, I won't have another chance to watch it all day. My daughter stirs, wakes, looks up at me and says: "I can hear a song playing in my ears!"

At this moment, during a commercial, the TV is on mute. No, I don't know why I don't just fast forward through the commercial, perhaps because it's very early in the morning and my brain hasn't soaked up enough coffee yet. The point is, there is no music playing. She's got a song stuck in her head.

She sits there enjoying the music only she can hear. "Do you want to hear the song in my ears, mommy?"

Of course I do, dear!

She scoots up to me. I think she means to sing to me, so I try to get my ear as close to her little lips as possible. Her head doesn't seem to be in the right position -- she keeps moving back. I attempt to bring my ear and her mouth together a few more times, until she finally grabs my head, holds it steady, and puts our ears right next to each other. We sit for a few moments, ear to ear. "Can you hear it, mommy? Isn't it great?"

Completely great, Little T.

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