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Sustained!
I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER
By Leann Guzman
November 14, 2005

Love You Forever
by Robert N. Munsch, Sheila McGraw

The first time I read Love You Forever was to my nieces and nephew before I had my daughter.  My sister-in-law raved and raved about the book, but when I read it to her kids, it completely creeped me out.  If you have never read the book, it's about how a mother, through all the stages of her child's life, sneaks into his room at night after he’s asleep, holds him, rocking him, "back and forth, back and forth, back and forth" and singing a little song to him about how she'll love him forever.  That's really sweet until the book gets to the stage in the boy's life where he's now a man, living on his own, and mom gets in her car, drives across town, crawls through the open window and rocks him, "back and forth, back and forth, back and forth."  At this point, I was totally put off.  Eewwww, I thought.  Mom's a little demented!

Creepy book.

Fast forward to my daughter’s second birthday party in August, when she received this book as a gift.  Oh, brother, I thought, that's going on the shelf never to be read.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when the friends who bought the book for her were at our house.  My husband, apparently forgetting who bought the book for her, saw one of the kids carrying it around and starts proclaiming how creepy the book is.  I'm throwing darts at him with my eyes, and he's looking at me like, what?  The friend said, "I'm the one who got that for her,” (understanding dawns in my husband’s eyes), “and I like the book because even if we as mothers don't actually drive across town, that's what we're doing in our minds.  No matter how old they get, they're always our baby."

Oh.  Clearly I was being too literal.

Well, fast forward to the last couple of nights.  My daughter wants me to read this book to her before bed.  Now that I realize it's all figurative rather than literal, I can't read the whole book without bawling.  My voice breaks, I can't sing the little song in the book, and I cry just think about how she’ll will always be my baby no matter how old she gets.  And one day, she will be too big for me to literally hold and rock, and then I'll have to do it only in my mind.

Stupid book.

ninetyandnine.com

© 2005, Leann Guzman

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Leann Guzman is ninetyandnine.com’s “Family / Work Issues” columnist. If you have suggestions on topics to explore, email her at Family@ninetyandnine.com.