I love you to the moon…

When bones was just a wee little girl…still with a ponytail high on her head…we’d curl up on the couch to read Good Night Moon and Guess How Much I Love You…her two favorite stories.

She’d shriek with each page in Good Night Moon…happier to find the yellow duck than to actually read the story but with Guess How Much I Love You…she’d cuddle in and hear the words.

One day…curled next to me while I read…she wrapped her arms around me and told me she “loved me to the moon.”

It was a sweet and precious moment I will never forget as she peered in my eyes ever so seriously full of so much love…and continued to tell me that while that was a very long way, she loved her Daddy to the “moon and back.”

How I laughed at the time…knowing she had little understanding of how far the moon was except for a very great distance and yet, while I’m not totally sure of my math skills, she seemed to be suggesting that she loved her father twice as much.

A year or two ago, wandering through a decorating shop (otherwise known as Chapters but that’s a discussion for another day), she was excited when she saw a throw pillow with “Love You to the Moon and Back” and suggested I buy it to remind us of her favourite story.

I laughed…explaining how the pillow should just say “I Love You to the Moon” and she stood in awe and horror as I told her the story and she repeatedly said “I’m sorry’s” while we laughed and joked tossing throw pillows at one another between the aisles of books.

It’s become a bit of a thing with us…when one of us says “I love you” it’s usually followed with “how much” and you’re left coming up with some sort of analogy that’s sometimes sweet but more often absurd.

Like this morning on the way to school…the following conversation occurred:

Me: “I love you.”

Bones: “How much.”

Me: “More than a monkey loves…ummmmm….”

Bones: “Bananas?”

Me: “No, throwing his poop at people visiting him at the zoo.”

Bones: “Monkey’s do that? That’s disgusting.”

Me: “Or highly intelligent. Seriously, they’re in these cages and who wants people staring at you all the time. Eventually, I would think it would make you want to chuck something at the onlookers and all you have is your own poop and when you finally throw it and it gets a big reaction out of the people standing there staring then I would think it would be pretty cool for the monkeys to watch people freak out and eventually…they’d probably just throw their poop regardless of being annoyed or not ’cause it would be a pretty awesome thing to do.”

Me continuing: “So…I love you more than a monkey loves to throw his poop at people.”

Bones: “Can I get a monkey?”

Me: “I’m not cleaning up monkey crap.” Then, pulling into the school yard, Bones opened the door a little annoyed that I wouldn’t agree to getting her a monkey…stepped out of the car and shut the door.

But not before looking back at me with a smile as she said, “I love you to the moon.”