Aloha 'Oe

My kid is many things: stubborn, bossy, far too smart for her own good. She is also: loving, kind, surprisingly gentle and tender with animals and babies. She is a lover, a fighter, a brat, an angel, a pteranodon ballerina, a mermaid, a pirate, a princess, and everything in between. In just about every way except for maybe the hair and the freckles, she is a mini-me, with all the awesomeness and awfulness that comes with that.

So we might have our really bad days, she and I, but we also have some really really great days together, too.

I originally picked this song for this video because (1) she's dancing a hula, and "Aloha 'Oe" is one of the first things that I think of when I think of Hawaiian music, and (2) she and I both love Elvis. (Hello, mini-me!) (Also, she loves Lilo & Stitch, and we love to dance around together to the Elvis music in that movie.)

It was only after I finished this movie that I actually looked up the lyrics to this song, and I realized that it's completely perfect. It's kind of a sad song, about a lover who is leaving, but it's also ... hopeful, somehow. The chorus goes:

Aloha ʻoe, aloha ʻoe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A hoʻi aʻe au
Until we meet again

Translation:
Farewell to thee, farewell to thee
The charming one who dwells in the shaded bowers
One fond embrace,
'Ere I depart
Until we meet again

I interpret the chorus like this, in this particular case: Goodbye, little girl. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but sooner that we both realize, than either of us is ready for. It's almost your birthday again. You're getting older and bigger and different every day, and before we both know it you'll be grown up with a life and kids and a blog of your own, and we'll never have a minute exactly like this again, but we'll always have this one, which I will remember forever and ever and always hold close to my heart.

I knew that parenting was going to be hard, that it would hurt and bruise and scar and break my heart sometimes, but I just didn't think it was going to happen already.