A, I want you to see yourself now, the way I see you
on our best days. You’re sitting in the backseat, holding a piece of wadded up
gum-wrapper, a leaf, an Elsa Barbie doll, a My Little Pony, an arm of a Potato head doll, or
even just your own wiggling fingers, and you’re talking to them like they are
your both your closest confidant and naughtiest child. “Do you know who dat is? Dat’s my mom! Dat’s Towie. You may
NOT have a tweat befo’ bedtime. You dit a spankin! Dat’s naughty! Do you know we
dwiving someweaw? We doing to daytair.” A, I just wish I could describe to you
your voice right now. It’s magic and music. It’s tinkling
and bubbly and silly.
Your minuscule, chubby pink hands are perfection. I
reach back when I’m driving and just hold on for dear life, because when I
blink you grow a little bit— the car seat is getting smaller and smaller, you've learned a new trick, you’re putting on your shoes now, you’ve figured out how
to floss your own teeth, you’re not scared of the dark as much as you used to be, you walk in to
preschool without any tears, you're fearlessly jumping off furniture and swimming in the bath like a fish. You walk with a purpose, flouncing your tutus,
proud of your flashing Frozen shoes or your clicking red cowgirl boots. More
than anything you are proud of when you make a choice, and I do not. I try to
remember to offer as many choices as I can.
I read somewhere that a chemical released in a mother’s
brain makes it nearly impossible to stop kissing her baby’s face, that her baby
just “smells” delicious. Weird, right? I’ll be the first to say, I definitely still have
that... I kiss your forehead and your little
nose and the top of your head. For some reason you are really ticklish on the
top of your head, especially at bedtime when it’s the last tactic you have to
keep me in the room. You thrash and wiggle through your Frozen blanket screaming
with laughter. “Stop mom stop!” Then, “Mo! Mo mom! Teekle me adain!”
You have a LAUGH. This
laugh is something I find out about every day. Your laugh is ever-multiplying. You could write the Book on
Laughs. So there’s the tinkling-brook, high-pitched laugh, typically utilized
when you make a discovery in a book you are reading to yourself, like, “Oh Mom,
isn’t that just HILARIOUS and RIDICULOUS?”
Then there’s what I call the Including Laugh; this is the laugh used for making
anyone nearby feel included into your circle of friends or your personal
bubble, accompanied by friendly body language and wide-open eyes. It is the
toddler call, an enticing invitation for companionship and bonding: “Come laugh
with me over this and we can be friends”. This is followed by the “Can you even
believe we just experienced that together? My GOODNESS...It is so good to be alive
right now!” Laugh. There is the out-of-control Tickling Laugh, usually open-mouthed
and with some amount of drooling. There’s also the mischievous laugh, which
reminds me of a sneaky elf. “Hehehe” you go, right before you poke someone in
the ribs or grab someone’s belongings, and run with hopes of being chased,
tackled, and loved.
Another laugh, which is a
show-stopper for family, friends, and strangers alike, is the Belly Laugh. If Scrooge
were around today, his icicle-ridden heart would be warmed instantly upon hearing this.
This laugh could make anyone believe in Christmas or miracles or God. It is the
warmest, purest joy. It comes out a lot when you are overtired and something really
funny happened in a book or a movie, something beyond hilarious in Toddler
World. It starts out with this quiet chortling that rises in volume and pitch
into full-out howling with laughter and shortage of breath.
You get so glowing,
bright-pink mad sometimes, just recently becoming a threenager possessing unmatched wisdom. And though she
be but little, she is fierce, I whisper to myself in shock (along with my “Help”
prayer I learned from Anne Lamott. Your rage is definitely not cute,
but the passion your tiny face exhibits cheers me on. Why? Because I need to be awake in every way-- to
keep thinking, moving, breathing, trusting God—not so I can tell you to be
quiet, but so I can guide you into your future. It’s not a sin for you to be
angry. I’m glad you are angry and that I’m a safe person for you to yell no at.
I tell you that anger is okay, yelling no at Mommy is not. I never know what
gets in between your perfectly shaped elfin-princess ears and through the mass
of tangled Merida-Shirley Temple-Annie curls, but a few weeks ago you said, “Mom,
mom, mom. Even when we aw mad at Dod, He ‘till yuv us!” When I try to pray for
you, you always emphatically say, “NO, Dod does not yuv me, but I yuv Dod sooooo much.”
A, I’m not scared anymore of raising you, but I am
scared of how it is raising ME to raise you. I have watched you come into the world.
I have spent hours upon hours praying and thinking about what is best for your
future. It’s funny that since I’ve been able to move on from fear about your
future as a child, teenager, and functioning adult, I have been attacked with
fears about everything else. My fear of failure is sitting on my shoulders; it is a burden so heavy that it
feels like a house, and I cannot breathe. I have tried and tried to get rid of
it on my own, but I can’t. I know... I know down to my bones and in my crumbly, fearful, tired soul that you are
what God sent me to help me keep fighting.
Like Peter, I said, “Master, if it’s really you, call
me to come to you on the water.”
Father,
Prove to me that you are real. Prove to me that I am worth saving.
And God said, “Come to
me, my love”.
So I thought about it for
minutes that felt like hours, and then I closed my eyes and made myself jump. The
dizzying fall, the sensation of knowing it’s too late to go back, the sudden arrival…
“Peter walked on the
water to Jesus. But when Peter looked down at the waves churning beneath his
feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, 'Master, save me!'"
Suddenly, I’m sinking,
and His hand reaches out.
The story takes my breath
away, because in the worst moments of my life, I have found that hand… Far more
than coincidence, today I was praying and I felt and held that hand again.
Come on, courage, dear heart. Get up.
Come on, courage, dear heart. Get up.
My friend took this one of me on a tired morning. This cracks me up; it is how life feels on a daily basis.
A loves to "help" me put on makeup
This is one of my favorite pictures. It is so real. Bathtime is an act of love. It is usually not fun and games for us. And the tummy pouch is in plain sight. This is motherhood.
Tooth-brushing.
All scripture taken from
Matthew 14, The Message.
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