An Illinois mother’s TikTok video is resonating with parents everywhere.
Christine Litteken, 36, shared a tearful TikTok video on Jan. 3 because her son Rhett did something “so small” that meant so much to her.
“My seven-year-old son just called me to tell me he had fun at a basketball game and the high school boys gave him a high five. We got him a watch for Christmas that only calls Mom and Dad. Then he said to his friends: ‘Guys, hello! It’s my mother.’ Then my heart exploded,” the mother wrote on top of the video in which she wiped away tears and held a hand to her heart.
The mother of two, who lives in Trenton and works as a videographer at Switzerfilm, also captioned the post with a hopeful message.
“I know it’s such a small thing, but I can only hope that he will always be so excited to call me first and tell his friends to say hi to me,” she continued.
The emotional video has racked up more than 6 million views, 1 million likes and 4,000 comments since Wednesday, January 15.
Christine tells PEOPLE that she “never thought it would go this wild,” adding that she “just wanted to share a little proud mom moment with my TikTok friends.”
Christine and her husband, Justin, 37 – who raise Rhett, daughter Reese, 5, and dog Gunner, 11 – revealed they bought a children’s smartwatch, which their son used to make phone calls. “We bought the TickTalk 5 from Amazon. It has its own telephone number and mobile subscription, but we program the watch via an app on our phone,” the mother explains.
The proud parent compared the moment to a Hallmark movie.
“I mean, at that age, young boys play it so cool,” she says. “The fact that he was so happy to reach out to me in the middle of the excitement felt so beneficial. … However, when he called out to his friend, my pride and emotions just overflowed. That phone call felt like the end of a Hallmark movie.”
Christine and her family enjoyed reading the comments from viewers who connected with the video and shared their own parent-child experiences.
A fellow mom commented, “I feel like my son is still doing this at 17. Boys are just different,” while another parent wrote, “My stepdaughter texts me pictures of the sunset and says it reminds her of me 🥺.”
Christine Scar
A third TikTok user said: “I panicked when I saw multiple missed calls from my son (17) and four voicemails. They were individual messages from his friends saying hello. I saved every message.”
Christine admits to PEOPLE that her TikTok video “became bigger” than just the “special moment between me and my son.”
“I keep saying that we found the healthiest place in that corner of Tiktok,” she says. “As I treasure that phone call from my son and cherish it forever, I will also remember the ripple effect his phone call had that day.”
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Another element that made her video special was repurposing country singer Lee Brice’s 2017 ballad “Boy” as the soundtrack for her viral TikTok video.
“This is our song for ‘Bubba’ [Rhett]so it just felt good. … We used this song in his birth story video about my pregnancy journey,” she tells PEOPLE. “I was battling infertility issues so we started documenting our journey and this song just hit differently and tugged at our hearts after our success with the IVF process. Using Lee Brice’s ‘Boy’ as a backdrop to another core memory just makes it that much more special.”