Lily Redeems Herself

The name "Lily" holds celebrity status in our house. She is the beloved thirteen-year-old who lives across the street and babysits for me when I'm tutoring. I kid you not when I say my eyes well up with tears at the very thought of this young lady. She has a beautiful smile, a sweet voice, and most importantly, she has captured the heart of my little girl. The thing about Lily is that when she babysits, there is no SITTING involved. She is the Navy Seal of babysitters, running, hiding, army crawling if necessary. And no game is out of the question. I've witnessed her easily transition from a game of Hide and Seek, to sidewalk chalk, to Leap Frog, to a tea party within an hour's time. Lily has even been known to hang around and continue the game of Tree Frog or Duck, Duck, Goose long after I've finished tutoring. And if that wasn't enough to make us devoted fans, Lily gave us her old Disney Princess videos as well as a tiara for Lil' Miss to wear while watching them. She could do no wrong as far as our family was concerned.

But then a couple of months ago, Lily decided to go and have a life of her own. Her mom called informing us that Lily had made the school play and would no longer be able to babysit due to afterschool rehearsals. I immediately went into panic mode. My heart started racing and my breathing grew heavy. Lily's mom went on to say something about the musical Aladdin, but all I heard was, "No more Lily. No more Lily. Your daughter's heart will be broken. You will do the breaking." Without even hanging up the phone, I marched across the street to tell Lily how sorry I was that she would have to quit the school play. Unaware of the havoc her new acting career was wreaking in my life, she just giggled at my demand and said she'd let us know when she'd be performing. How could she even THINK of her drama when I was up to my armpits in my own?

Needless to say, we've been "Lily-less" for quite some time now. If anything, the absence of our special sitter just confirms how much Lil' Miss loves her. After all this time, my little girl still asks where "Yih-wee" is and why she can't play with her. And to be honest, I'd pretty much forgotten about the musical. Lily was so excited about the theatrical turn her life had taken but I was too busy missing her to pay any attention.

However, all that was about to change. Last Friday afternoon, Lily's mom stood in her driveway holding up two pieces of paper, tickets for that night's performance of Aladdin. "A princess story AND Lily? Are you kidding me? Of COURSE we can go!" I raced into the house and told Lil' Miss the good news. She could hardly keep her eyes in her head and danced around the room like a banshee. We quickly showered, put on fancy dresses and added some shiny pink "liploss". (One must always, respectfully, dress to impress when going to the theatre, even if by "theatre" I mean the local middle school cafeteria.)

Giddy with the excitement that only an evening of princess pageantry can bring, we anxiously drove to the school and made our way past the crowded entrance to the front row where Lily's mom was saving our seats. As we settled in, I noticed that Lil' Miss, usually quite the chatterbox, sat perfectly still and silent in the seat next to mine with her hands neatly folded in her lap. The girl was speechless! Hypnotized by the colorful scenes and props, she could barely take her eyes off the stage long enough to blink. Then the lights suddenly dimmed, the curtains parted, and the music cued. I pulled her up into my lap, wrapped my arms around her, and rested my chin on her head, taking advantage of this opportunity for a lengthy cuddle.

And although she watched most of the play peeking through the cracks between her fingers (we hadn't figured on the frightening face make-up of the genie and the monkey that only a hand covering her face could allay), my little girl was transfixed, touched by Lilymania. Almost one week later, she is still a screaming, swooning groupie of the "moozicul" and chatters on and on about how beautiful everything was, especially Lily.