the sweetest thing

since she was born, i have typically been the one to put annabel down to sleep for the night. especially after i went back to work and cheryl got to be with her, taking care of her all day, i had to seize the opportunities whenever they were there. we've used lots of things when its bedtime to calm her down and get her to fall asleep. ever since the beginning though, we have always sung to her. at first i think that i sang songs like hush little baby and rock-a-bye-baby. being that all things were pretty fuzzy early on though, that really is just a guess. not too long after she was born though, cheryl taught me a song that both her dad and grampy would sing to her, the irish lullaby. you know the one, "toorah loorah loorah. toorah loorah lye..." well, after she taught me the words i would sing that to annabel every night (i'll never sing it as well as cheryl does though). sometimes for 30 straight minutes. and i only know one verse and the chorus so you can do the math about how many "toorah loorahs" i would repeat in that time. well, i decided that i needed to add another song to my repertoire so i learned the verses for amazing grace. three of the verses. there are about 20 actual verses i think so i had to cut it off somewhere. while learning the lyrics i stumbled across an a capella version sung by leann rimes on youtube. certainly the most beautiful version that i have ever heard. and not only did i love hearing it, so did annabel. some days when nothing else seemed to be calming her down, i would find it on youtube, hit play and watch my little angel drift off to the sweet sound of leann. it was pretty amazing :) all of this is going somewhere, i promise. about a month ago i heard the song hallelujah on tv i think. the jeff buckley version made popular on the first shrek movie and then jason castro on american idol. i love that song. so i thought it seemed totally appropriate to learn the words and start singing that to annabel. i can still remember the first time that i sang it to her. i had found the video sung by rufus wainwright (who sang it on shrek) on youtube with the lyrics so i decided to go with that. i was standing in our office, lights off, baby cuddled up in my arm reading the lyrics and singing along with rufus. as i write this i can still see her staring up at me with the most beautiful eyes and the sweetest smile (clear as if it was 10 minutes ago). it was one of those moments that i know will remain etched in my memory until the day i die. people talk about having spiritual experiences from a mountaintop, when they see a waterfall or after a near-death experience. well, i can tell you that i have had all those experiences but none of them can hold a candle to that night standing in our upstairs office with rufus wainwright playing on our computer. this baby has changed both mine and cheryl's lives in so many ways in just a few short months. i knew that she would do that. and i knew that she would change how i see the world and live my life. i just had not ever considered though that she would so clearly show me what the face of god truly looked like...

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