Lovely freaking-evening

The Disney Princess iPod was not my idea.

I got suckered. I took the girls to a book store and told them each to pick one. Mare agonized before selecting the next installation in the Junie B. Jones series. Ren trotted over to me dragging a gigantic purple and pink monstrosity.

“That’s not a book, baby,” I said. “See, books have, like words. And plot, and hopefully rich illustrations and a penetrating moral lesson.”

“It plays the circle song!!” She pressed a button and a chorus of chipper eunuchs sang, “The more we get together together together THE MORE WE GET TOGETHER …!!”

“Oh. Heeeeeell no,” I said.

“You said a book!” she said.

“That’s a TOY!”

Somehow or other, we ended up with it.

It’s really super-clever: a honk’n piece of pink and purple with a small screen. A little icon on the screen symbolizes the song. You spin the dial to shuffle through the icons and press “play” when you get to the one you want. Just so Disney didn’t have to live with being accused of not perpetuating intellectualism in little girls, the lyrics — I’m guessing about 250 words, total — are printed in 7 pages of purple-and-pink color board splashed with cartoon images of vapid-smiled girls and singing teapots.

“The more we get together together TOGETHER!!!” Those freaking eunuchs sing.

“It is the death of our American folk tradition,” sighs Miss Grace, Mare’s dance teacher. She is being subjected to the iPod while I try to gather my entourage for the door after dance class. Renny keeps hitting the icon of three anorexic little cut out girls holding hands.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” I say, scrolling until we hit the icon of the little shoe. I press the button.

“Here comes the bride!!” sing the eunuchs. “ALL DRESSED IN WHITE!! After she marries him her dreams all come true!!”

This thing makes me violent.

So of course the toy part is lost somewhere and all that’s left is the book, so now in lieu of reading, she makes me her own personal iPod. She flips the lyric pages, which are conveniently organized by icon. She has the icons memorized, so she points to the one she wants and makes me sing it to her. Tonight it was “Bippity Boppity Boo” and then “The More We Get Together” and then she asked me for “Home, Sweet Home.”

“I don’t know how that one goes,” I tell Ren.

“Just sing it, Momma.”

“But … really, I’m not lying, I don’t know.” I peer up at the top bunk. “Do you know?” I ask Mare.

“Um. Nope,” she says.

“Sorry, Ren.”

How about this one: “Oh, how lovely is the evening,” I sing. I’m not much of a singer. But I come from a family of musicians. And a strong tradition of folk music. This one I know. And I happen to love.

“NO!” Renny says. “Home sweet home!!”

“I DON’T KNOW THAT ONE!” I say. Ren scowls.

“Mare, repeat after me.” And I teach it to her.

“Oh, how lovely is the evening, is the evening, when the bells are sweetly ringing, sweetly ringing, ding, dong, ding …” Death of the American folk tradition, my ass.

I go through it a few times, Mare has it, and then I tell her, “Sing it no matter what I am singing. Don’t get off track.”

And then she sings and I come in after the first phrase and she gets off for a second, rebounds, and the next thing I know we’re matched up, and I am singing a round with my daughter. And it’s even pretty.

“Oh how lovely is the evening…” we echo.

“SWEET HOME!! HOME!! HOME IS SWEET!!!” shrieks Ren.

“When the bells are sweetly ringing …”

“HOME HOME SWEET HOME!!!”

“Ding, dong …”

“Hey, do you know that if you took this away,” Ren says, brandishing a teeny white feather. “It wouldn’t matter because I would have more. I could just take them straight out of the pillow. And this is a big pillow.”

“Good night, my love.”

“SWEET HOME!! HOME SWEET HOME!!!”