Dancing with Cinderella

This morning started out as a terrible, no good, rotten, horrible day, with Tootle waking up at 5 a.m. and being unwilling/unable to go back to sleep. When I got up at 6:30, I ordered her not to get out of bed and to sleep some more and then headed downstairs to feed the cats and do my other usual morning chores. Nana had turned on the Today show, and as I scurried around, I suddenly stopped as I heard that Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter Maria was killed yesterday when her brother accidentally ran her over in their driveway. What heart wrenching news. (Maria, 5, was one of three girls that the Chapman family adopted from China, and through the family's foundation they have done much good for China's orphans.) I immediately went upstairs, where I knew that Tootle likely wasn't sleeping. She was lying there with her eyes open, so I scooped her up, said I was sorry, and hugged her for a few minutes.

I'm treating this tragedy as a wake up call to spend more time playing with and appreciating my girls (there's always time for the work crises or cleaning or laundry after they go to bed at night); in other words to "dance with Cinderella" as Steven Chapman wrote and sings so beautifully:

She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I'm sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day
And there's still work to do
She's pulling at me
Saying "Dad, I need you

There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...