Oh to sing my little sister to sleep...

Here I am sitting on the floor of my 25 year old little sister's room playing on my computer waiting for her to fall asleep. We watched a pretty scary movie the previous night that gave her nightmares. So naturally tonight she was a little reluctant to go to her room in the basement alone. So here I am and I was reminded of the following story:

When we were little Dina and I shared a bedroom and a bunk bed (I had the top bunk) and I took my role as an older sister very seriously. One night Dina asked me to sing to her when it was time for us to fall asleep. She told me that it was because she thought I had a pretty voice. Me being the proud older sister that I was obliged and "gifted" her with my supposedly angelic voice. In the middle of my third or fourth song my older sisters in the room next door began to yell at me to be quiet and shut up, but I paid them no heed.

After what I'm sure was nothing short of a full on concert did I finish singing and to my surprise Dina was asleep! I was so mad. It took me forever to fall asleep that night because I had the knowledge that I was the only person awake and I was scared.

Well night after night of ballads and primary sings with my older sisters yelling from the next room I continued to fall for the same "you have a pretty voice" line over and over. And every night I would get mad that she was asleep before me. (Who knows how many weeks this went on for, it could have easily been months!)

Not until several years later did Dina actually confess that she had no interest in my vocal abilities but in fact she asked me to sing to her because that was the only way that she was guaranteed not to be the last one awake. Nice, huh?!

So here I am 20 some odd years later sitting on a dog bed on her bedroom floor. And even though my little ego was bruised so long ago I am more than happy to keep her company as she falls asleep tonight, with no singing involved.