A Contradiction

I see it when she sits down at the table, shoulders back.  She tosses her hair and crosses her ankles.  And then I see it when she talks, throwing words like 'satisfaction' and 'mysterious' into her sentences like they're no big deal.  A lesson on astronomy here, a discussion about biology there.  There's a chapter book and a flashlight by her bed; the words are in her head now, no need to be said out loud. 

She is seven years old. 

We are not allowed to hug her in front of friends.  Even a blown kiss would be disastrous.  She wants to be an artist.  Or a scientist.  Independent dreams that prove it to me: Mia is growing up so fast.

"This girl is popular, mom.  So, so popular."

"She is?  I wonder why?"

"I don't know, she just is."

"Well...what does that mean, though?  What does it mean to be popular?"

"You know, mom...she's popular.  It means there are always people crowding around her and trying to talk to her."

I start to worry about this new-to-her concept that only ever leads to exclusion, wondering what happened to my baby, but I stop.  I step back and watch Mia's scene unfold.  She's not talking about the popularity of a girl at school or an actress on tv.  She's holding a doll with shiny black hair and unbending limbs.  She's dressed her in a denim skirt and button-up blouse, and is settling her into the world of her imagination.  The doll is ready for lunch.  Mia breaks off three pieces of bread and places them in front of the doll before lifting a crumb to the painted-on lips.  She whispers something to the doll without looking up at me again.  The doll giggles in Mia's voice, and the two of them are lost in play. 

It's okay, I breathe. 

She is still seven years old. 

Tuesdays Around the World: Loosey Goosey

 

I don't remember losing my teeth, but it seems like it must have been a traumatic experience.  The thought of a dangling nerve or a bloody hole makes me shiver all over.  The thought of pulling a tooth makes me fall a little bit apart.  Could I have actually accomplished such a thing?

 

Mia's baby tooth has been loose for months.  A little bit of a wiggle at first, then a succession of greater mobility leading up to the big day.  I guess that's how these things go, taking so long, but I don't know; I'm new to the falling-out teeth gig.  She's over seven years old and it's a first for us.  For her.  The worrisome bit was the jagged permanent tooth growing in behind the wiggler.  A party crasher, too early for the festivities.  All crooked and sideways in its approach.  Did it mean the baby tooth would have to be pulled?  By an adult?  A dentist?  *shudder*  Maybe the pressure of an upward-bound adult tooth was needed to oust the baby.

 

I kept myself awake over these things.

 

Maybe it's true what they say about first children: the world revolves around them.  (Wait.  Is that what they say?  I never paid too much attention to all of that birth order stuff.)  After all, if a parent thinks and reacts and spends so much energy imagining every step of that child's life...

 

Well, anyway, I worried. 

 

Then she just pulled it out.  A twist and a grimace and out came the baby tooth, bouncing across the carpet, smaller than I remembered it being when it was still attached to her gums.  A baby tooth, missing its baby mouth. 

 

I thought I might cry.  But if she was crowing and spouting her pulled-tooth story to everyone who'd listen, I couldn't justify the tears.  Sure, she's not a baby anymore.  I've known that for a long time.  The hard, calcified evidence, lay before me in her fingertips, presented like a trophy. 

 

Engraved on its enameled surface, smaller than my eyes can make out, was probably something along the lines of

 

Here lies the past.  Lets see what happens next.

 

Or maybe it was something more juvenile.

 

Baby teeth are for babies.

 

Whatever the inscription, you just can't cry over such truth.  So I laughed instead.

 

 

 

Tuesdays around the world are hosted at Communal Global.

I Am Thankful: First {A Bigger Picture Moment}

Mia is telling a story and it goes like this:

 

"Ryan is the fastest boy in first grade -- except maybe for Enoch -- and he can never catch me!  He chases me EVERY day, mom, but I'm faster than him and I keep getting away.  He can get thisclose, and I zoom away.  I don't want him to catch me!  But I do like being chased.  It's so exciting!  And sometimes, he gets his whole TEAM of boys to chase me and then I get a little bit scared but it's still so much fun!  I always, always have to wear my fastest running shoes to school, okay mom?  The more I run, the faster I can get!"

 

 

And I look at her like, who are you?  You're getting chased?  By boys?  And you LIKE it?

 

It boggles.  She is so different than I am, top to toe.  She is graceful and free-flowing.  I lurch and stub.  She is excited and ready.  I am standoffish and halting.  If she came from my body, it was only because she was planted there by somebody who is better than me. 

 

 

I look at her and I cannot breathe.  It's not beauty, necessarily, although she is stunning.  It is everything; her particles and cells and motion and air displacement are magical to me.  You can toss your explanations in here any time: my hormones or my mother's heart force me into irrational, spewing adoration.  Seeing my first mirror image growing into herself is intoxicating, though, and I don't care to explain it away.  

 

 

 

We have a staring contest on a regular basis.  Mia sits within a foot of my face, and we trade stares for as long as we can manage.  It's tricky the first couple of times to make sure she wins, because I want the game to continue. She masks her face into an unsmiling seriousness: the better to win. I relax my cheeks and get down to business.  I want to fall into her eyes and live there for a few minutes, a few decades. 

Her eyes are exactly the same color as mine.  Grey-blue and marbled.  Rich and deep at sunrise, icy and thin at dusk.  In there somewhere is a fully-formed soul, and it is hers alone, but I reach for it.

While I watch, her pupils grow and melt into her irises.  I feel swallowed whole.   

 

To say I am thankful for my daughter feels silly.  It isn't the whole truth. It would be better to say that I am completely consumed by gratitude for her place in this world.  I fall apart at the generosity of her life.  The fact of her presence.  The truth of her heart.  The sound of her laughter.  The challenges of her being my first attempt at mothering.  The strength of her legs.  The scope of her mind.  The curl of her body into my own as I sing her a song before bed.  The sweetness of her spirit.

 

But pared down to its most basic meaning, yes: I am thankful for Mia. 

 

 

 

 

We're gathering our harvest of blessings and naming them one by one, sharing the gratitude in our hearts every Thursday through the end of November. Won't you join us today at Jade's place? Share a picture, words, creation, or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

 

Starring Orville Redenbacher as the Sandman

It's just her and me in the early morning, before breakfast, before siblings, before sunrise.  We talk and snuggle under a blanket on the couch, waiting for the toast to pop or the oatmeal to cool.  Her fingers are cold.  Her smile is slow.  Her words are quiet. 

A light burns behind her pupils and she's remembered something:

"Hey!  I had a dream about Mr. Landon last night!"  She is faraway now, pulling at strands of what must be a receding wisp. 

"About Landon?  Our baby boy?"

She rolls her eyes.  "No, not that Landon.  Remember the Landon who helped with summer school?  He's a teenager?  Mr. Landon?"

"Ohhhh,"  I say.  "Well what happened in your dream?"

She opens her mouth to spill the beans, then thinks better of it.  "I actually don't want to talk about it."

"You don't?  Why not?"

"It's too embarrassing!" She scoots back into the couch cushions, making herself scarce.  "I just had a dream about him and that's all you need to know, okay?"

"Okay..."  But I'm suspicious now.  My first grader had an embarrassing dream about an older boy?  What's happening here?  Why must they grow up?

I leave it alone, a pile of un-teased threads on a soft fabric that isn't mine to unfurl.  The day passes.  I think of other things, but mostly, of my first baby girl.  The one who seems to be in love with a boy in her dreams.  I promise myself that I won't question further.  I'll avoid the subject.  I'll wait patiently.  I'll be disinterested.

So when we sit down for a snack after school, of course, the first thing out of my mouth is, "If I don't look at you when you answer, can I ask you a question about your dream?"

"No, Mommy!"

"See?  I'm not watching you!"  I turn my eyes to the corner where the cabinets meet the wall.  "Did Mr. Landon hold your hand in the dream?"

She is quiet so that I think she's not going to put up with me much longer.  Then:

"No."

A reply!  "Oh.  Did he dance with you?"

She giggles.  "No, mom."

"Huh.  Did....he...give you a kiss?"

"What?!  NO!"

"Well...!"

"But..."

I turn to look at her, breaking my promise.  She is proud and nonchalant.  Like this conversation is almost below her recognition and she can't imagine why I'm interested.

"But he did give me some popcorn."  A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, and her eyebrows quirk up.  "And he had to look all over the whole school so he could find me."  She picks up an apple slice and takes a bite through her spreading grin. 

I laugh and she joins me.

"Popcorn?"  I shake my head.  Of course it was popcorn.  The stuff dreams are made of, apparently. 

That's Time {A Bigger Picture Moment}

Months ago when I said that I was finally at peace with the fact that my children will continue to grow up and away, I think I was prematurely philosophizing.  Or maybe just awash in the perfect glow of new baby.  Because if I've learned anything since the beginning of the school year, it's been a reminder that time flies.  No -- that's too mild a term.  Time, in all actuality, careens out of control.  It catches the tailwind on a beam of light, and raises its arms into the air, screaming through the downward spirals.

That's time: gone and wild and echoing.

So yes, I was premature. 

Lately I feel like I'm standing in a room full of falling feathers, and just as I'm beginning to enjoy the sweet float of a downy tuft, it hits the ground and is lost among the pile.  Or I think the feather will fall forever, and all I need to do is keep my eyes on it to be carried away with the peacefulness of the moment.  But still, the feather hits the pile.  And just as I find another one -- maybe one with purple iridescence along its ivory quill -- a sudden gush of feathers is dumped all at once right on top of my head, and even if I wanted to pick a few of them to notice, it would be impossible.  They're so overlapped and tangled, and there's probably the most precious little feather in the bunch that I'll miss...

That's time, too: deceptive and hidden and silent.

And the only thing I can do, because it certainly hasn't fallen to my jurisdiction to make the years pass by more slowly, is keep my hands open.  Flex fingers that are tired from sorting through laundry and sinks full of soapy water.  Stretch palms that are itching from the neediness of the day. 

I just want you to know that I'm trying to catch feathers over here, and that it's possible and worthwhile and even exhilarating, if you hold your breath and close your eyes and jump right into the moment.  Lunge at the tiny, hidden feather that you know is about to fall beyond your vision, and open your hand...

************

It was raining like the sky wished to become one with the earth.  Like it wanted to erase spacial boundaries and live together forever as mud. 

Mia and I yelled to each other over the deafening pound of downpour-on-windshield.  The drive to school was suddenly exciting, each puddle begging to be plowed through and emptied with a splash.  Great weather for sitting by a window with a cup of hot tea.  Terrible weather for walking a first-grader into school. 

Unless you're a first-grader, I guess, in which case the rain is everything you've ever dreamed of.  The wind is like a rave.  The mad dash is like a freefall.

"Mama, will you park really far away from the door today?" 

I peered at her face in the rearview mirror, noting the lift of her eyebrows.  The tilt of her lips.  The pause of her breath.  She's serious.  She WANTS to be caught in a rainstorm.

I laughed and the sound was swallowed up by one million falling raindrops.  Then I drove right past the school's driveway.  Past the parked cars.  Across the street.  Into the parking lot.  To the back row.

We flipped open our mismatched umbrellas, jumped into the maelstrom, splashed through puddles and into the wind and across the street.  We screamed and hopped and ran and got wildly, madly, soaking wet, from heels to shoulders. 

Inside the front door, our shoes squeaked and we tamped down our giggles into something more manageable, like hiccups.  We shook off glittering droplets from our umbrellas, and walked to Mia's classroom.

I kissed her forehead.  She rewarded me with a dazzling smile. 

I caught that feather cleanly.  It was mine.  For a few minutes that morning, I waved a soggy, rain-wet feather over my head, claiming the moment. 

Then she walked to her desk, and I let the feather fall to the pile, where it belonged.  A softness of feather-light memories, some forgotten, some mistaken for tedium, some appreciated.  And this one in particular: sodden and dripping and unforgettable.

But that's time: soft and incessant and begging to be remembered.





Every Thursday, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimpse of the Bigger Picture through a simple moment. Join the Bigger Picture Community here today! Reflect upon something simple — or simply magical — that’s resonated with you this week, then share it with us!

Super-Heart Girl

Some days, she's a superhero.  She is brave and powerful and crafty.  A force.  And some days she is tangled up inside with new feelings of doubt and worth and the need to fit. 

 

 

I send her to school in the mornings, and I sometimes forget that school isn't all about academics.  There are social structures to scale and friendships to build.  There are kids of varying degrees of maturity, and there are kids who notice differences.  Kids who pay attention if a tiny little girl hugs and kisses her mom at the classroom door each morning.  They tag pig-tails as babyish and cartwheels as the key to success. 

 

And Mia is still so little.  She still wears pig-tails.  She hasn't yet mastered the cartwheel.  She clings for a last hug before I leave her at the door.  I've clung, too.  Her baby-sweetness hides behind her ears and around her narrow shoulders, and I seek it out.  She is so little.  Her heart is so little. 

 

 

But it's big enough to break.  Her heart is big enough to register hurts and slights.  She can see the girls who are confident and grown-up before their time.  Those girls are somebody's baby, too, but they seem so much more....I don't know what.  First-graders are the new fifth-graders, maybe. 

 

Only, Mia is truly only six years old, through and through.  She pretends and sings and needs to have bad dreams chased away at night.  Her favorite teddy bear waits in the back seat of the car until school is out each afternoon.  And I cannot tell you exactly how much I love her innocence.  I love it because the world spins so fast.   I love it because time will pile up under us until it's bigger than our memories.  I love her innocence because I know it will fade. 

 

 

Its transience makes it precious and I see myself hoarding small bits of it.  A giggle here.  A mispronounced word there.  A pile of extra kisses at bedtime.

 

But the world wants her to be grown up rightnow, and she feels it.  When somebody won't play with her at recess because she's 'just a little kid', she feels it.  They are the same in age, but separated by expectations and experience and attitude.

 

I'm tempted to help her find ways to fit in -- to leave the babyness hidden with blankies at home, so she won't have to fight through cliques or shuns or embarrassments.  I think about popular music and clothes and movies, and part of me wants to usher her towards those things.  Only, I keep going back to her fleeting, precious, six-year-old spirit. 

 

I love her just like this, and I love her possibilities, and I love her superhero heart.  I hold tight to the hope that the more I accept her as she is right now, the more she will accept about herself when those last wisps of babyhood blow away into the wind.  And I'm certain I'll feel the need to chase after them with a butterfly net, then, so I'll leave them right where they are for now: trailing behind her as she rids the world of evil with her superhero heart.

Tuesdays Around the World: Mia

As soon as she stepped foot out of Kindergarten -- what?  two weeks ago?  a lifetime ago? -- she declared herself a First Grader.  I know what that means.  That means 7-year-olds.  And homework.  Sleepovers.  It means almost-a-second-grader.  Almost a teenager and almost a young lady.  But she is my first baby, so I contradict her: she will not be a first grader until she steps foot in the classroom.  Even then, I will be suspicious.  First graders are not little.  They are full-grown, still-growing people, walking away into life. 

"Mama, when I was a baby, did I make cute noises like Landon does?"  She asks from the back of the car as we're driving across town.  Landon is gurgling and squealing delightedly -- delightfully -- in front of her. 

"Of course," I tell her.  "You sounded a lot like him, all bubbly and happy."

But as her attention refocuses out a tinted window, I panic; I can't actually remember the sound of her baby gurgles and her sloppy raspberries.  They must have sounded just the same as her baby brother's.  As her little sister's.  Babies do this.  But was her inflection sharper, softer, broader, tighter?  I can't hear it in my head.

I stare at her in the rear view mirror, at her sister in the next seat, at her brother -- all I can hear is right now.  This very minute, the bubbles and screeches and questions and giggles and songs, they fill my head to the exclusion of memory although I desperately wish to hold it all, every scrap and snippet, snug for the rest of time, until it stands still and eternity holds us...

But then they are all three silent at the very moment my eyes begin to prick with hot tears, and it is okay. 

I can't hold the yesterdays.  I can only step into the tomorrows. 

First-grader or not, she is living into tomorrow.  I guess I'll join her.

Tuesdays Around the World is hosted by Communal Global -- go visit to take a quick globe-trot and make some new friends!

Also linking with Heather's Just Write -- another place to make new friends and share yourself with words.

Balloon and the Bird, By Mia

One of the great things about summertime for a six-year-old is that there's a built-in, mid-day rest time while the baby sleeps.  Time to play quietly, watch a video, color a picture...

or write and illustrate a book!

Like this one:  Balloon and the Bird, By Mia 

A balloon.

A bird found the balloon.

It brought it to the nest.

It tied it on the nest.

(Ed. note: Mama bird is proud of herself!)

The end!

Side note: Mia has written a book before I have.  I would be jealous if I weren't so proud.  Picture me like that puffed-up mama bird, up there.  Proud :)

After All

Between the Both of Them, They'll Lick the Platter Clean

Practicing stage entrances and exits -- my purple-skirted darling leads.

These two daughters of mine are like double-sides of a page torn from the same book.  Their hearts match in so many ways that I sometimes forget they aren't the same age.  Lauren is completely capable of most things Mia can accomplish, and Mia is enamored of the same things Lauren finds wonderful. 

They are so alike. 

But there is something.  (Many things.  But for today, just this one-- )  Lauren loves ballet with every delicate inch of her soul.  She loves ballet so much that she sometimes cries after practice is finished, wanting to do more dancing.  And Mia begs to never do ballet again.  She's sure she'd prefer karate.  Or art class.  Or a hamster.

So there are these two girls, so recognizable to each other, yet harboring such vast preferential differences.  And I'm beside myself: what will happen with recitals in a few days?  Though Lauren adores ballet from the tips of her toes to the smile on her lips, I'm fairly certain she won't adore the attention that comes along with being on stage.  She hides behind my legs very often and cannot find her tongue in group settings.  Her shyness hasn't abated since toddlerhood.  I even wonder if she'll step foot onto the stage, when the moment comes. 

She loves her costume, she loves her routine, she loves her teacher, but she might be too shy to show us on Sunday afternoon. 

Then there's Mia.  Her recital is a few weeks away, but she seems completely ready.  While she professes to hate ballet, I suspect it's the one-hour round trip on practice days that really irks her.  Because in practice, she smiles and laughs and performs.  When she has an audience, she half-forgets what she's doing, but she loves the audience.  I have a feeling she'll thrive on-stage. 

So there's this girl who might want so badly to dance but not have the nerve to actually do so.

And there's this girl who couldn't possibly care less about dancing but might become a spotlight-lover on the night in question.

I've told Lauren how much fun it will be when she gets to dance on stage and how excited I am to watch her and her friends dancing in their costumes.  How else should we prepare her?  How can I encourage her if she gets too nervous?  (I'm not above a bribe...)  Have your kids ever gone through episodes like this?  Have they surprised you in their bravery? 

Friends, tell me your stories because I'm so hoping to see both of my sweet ballerinas in their first performances--

Bigger Picture Moment: Bigness

To me, she is little.  She waits at the door, leaning to get a glimpse of  the Easter-egged yard past the other kids' shoulders.  Little hands grip a wicker basket, little feet shuffle, a little nervous smile flits. 

Then, with a burst, the children pour through the shadows and dissolve into the sunlight.  Mia is flustered from all the opportunity nestled in the grass.  She switches direction twice before finally bearing down upon a pastel egg.  Once in her hands, she drops it into her basket and takes off for more.  The other kids are ants swarming an outdoor picnic.  Arms and legs flailing, eyeball-antennas focused on the prize. 

Mia drops to her knees for a royal blue plastic egg.  She lifts it to the sky, smiling.  Mama!  It's a TINY one!  And it is; the egg would only hold a teaspoon of sugar if it came to such a measurement.  She is beside herself with pleasure.  The unusual.  The miniature.  It is hers.  She nestles it within her basket's paper grass and scurries away, hunched over in pursuit. 

Then, from the porch: Big kids, be sure to leave the easy eggs for the little kids to find, okay?

Mia pauses.  She glances into her two-egged basket.  She reaches inside while the rest of the smiling ants continue to swarm, and she picks up her tiny egg -- the easy egg.  Her legs turn and she skips back to the clump of grass recently freed of its treasure.  I hear her mutter, alright, little egg...

My heart twists; she thinks she is big.  I heard the reminder about big kids and little kids differently, and this is my everyday knowledge: Mia is my baby.  She is my tiny egg.  A white sun is perched directly above her dark-coppery head and she thinks she is big.  Cousins twelve inches taller than her are jumping for eggs in tree branches and she thinks she is big.   Her basket is nearly empty while the other gatherers have almost filled theirs and she thinks she is big.

She was willing to give up her tiny, blue egg.  The one that caused her eyes to widen and her heart to show behind those glittering irises.  She would have been content if the hunt had ended then, with the teaspoon-sized egg nearly alone in her basket. 

But she separates the grassy border at her feet, wedges the egg back into new-green blades, goes off in the direction of kindness.

She is big, I think.  She is.




We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Alita's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.

Bigger Picture Moment: Mia, from Justin's Perspective

He tells me about it.

He walks Mia into her elementary school and down the hall to her kindergarten class.  There are not many parents walking their kids all the way into school this late in the year.  Mostly, the tiled halls are filled with children threading around corners and dashing behind friends. 

I imagine it: cool, morning light at their backs, father and daughter silhouetted in the glow.  His hand reaches down to hers reaching up.  Palms as touchpoints.  Longer strides slowed to shorter.  He glances sideways at her assurance.  This is her turf.  She knows it and is master of it.

At her hallway, she slows down.  One hand steadies her backpack and the other tries to pull away from her daddy's grip.  She is pulling into herself now -- condensing into a girl who needs no strong hand to guide her to the classroom.  And she certainly doesn't need a hug or kiss.  Once they arrive at the classroom door, she is all but self-enclosed.  Still, Justin asks, in case she's decided to allow a bit of bestowed affection after all.

Okay, Mia, give me a hug, he says.  It's half joke, half plea.

Her face curls up into a smile that won't be released.  It's too embarrassing.  Inside, there must be a gem of want -- a place that needs her daddy's hug before saying goodbye -- or the smile would be a true scowl.  She would simply race away, into the room of friends who are surely watching to see some errant display of shameful love.  But she stays, betraying the want while refusing to acknowledge it.

So he makes a concession.  A trio of hand squeezes in exchange for a refused hug.

Squeeze.  Squeeze.  Squeeze.

I. Love. You.

She grips his hand and reciprocates the pattern, looking away the whole time.  She will give nothing away.  Her backpack is hitched up on one shoulder now, and one leg is over the threshold.  She is here, but already gone. 

Their hands release, but his eyes hold on.  Locked on her as she darts away, hair flying back in her haste.  He waits, watching for one last maybe. 

Maybe she will look back.

Maybe she will flash a smile.

Maybe she will sign 'I Love You' with stretched out fingers.

But either way, all day he feels the squeezes of slender fingers on his hand.  Memory-ghosting around his heart like a promise, of which she carries the mirror image.

I. Love. You.



We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful.  Please join us here today!  Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.

Bigger Picture Moments: God as a Mother

I have red, swollen scratches on my chest from Landon's kneading fingertips.  He paws and pinches while he nurses.  A baby kitten with drunken eyes half-shuttered, pushing against his mother's softness.  Sometimes I pull his fist away to ease the sting.  Sometimes I let him claw.  His pushing is instinctual; my body, the cushion against which he can find his own strength.

But those inflamed lines don't really hurt me.  They are fleeting and sweet.  And Lauren's little-girl wildness doesn't hurt me.  She is still learning to reign in that fire for life which most of us have controlled into something (sad) like respectable stoicism. 

It's something else that's hurting me, and I feel powerless against it.  It is the attitude of a beautiful six-year-old girl. 

She is smack in the middle of childhood and there is so much to learn about life right now.  About society.  Friendship and respect and doubt.  About allowing others to be different.  And about trusting those around you to listen to simple words without devolving into demands to make yourself heard.  About love.

Six is hard for Mia right now.  Not every day; she is funny and smart and sweet in giant swaths and for days on end.  But the hard parts are overpowering in their negativity.  Part of it, I know, is just normal brain-stretch and soul-growth that every child travels through on the way to being big.  (Isn't it?  Please tell me it is...)  But oh -- the other part?  Seems inherent to this darling girl. 

She is fierce.  She is always right.  She does not hear the rudeness in her voice, nor does she understand how it makes others feel -- about themselves and about her. 

I could punish her into submission, but that would remove any spark of the beautiful strength that lies behind her force.  I could command, matching her tone with an anger of my own, but that would fill her with conviction: to be heard, it's okay to yell and demand and control.  I love her through it, but those moments of argument and stubbornness and anger -- they hurt.

And this, surely, must be what God feels for us.  We rail and stomp or ignore completely, and the mother-heart of God listens.  Hopes for our about-face.  Understands that life is a maze of external and internal, choices and obligations, love and hate.  Waits patiently while guiding us with an absolute fulfillment of love.

It hurts God, I'm sure.  Watching us turn away from truth and towards self-satisfaction.  Our mother God has birthed us into being and endured our scratching fingertips and set us into the world, where we must live and learn. 

And right now, I'm trying to learn that my own mother-heart is filled enough with God's grace to extend it to my child.  I can endure the fingernails that draw beads of blood over my heart.  I can endure the pinching words and angry faces that are flung carelessly in my direction.  I can embrace the beauty and accept the challenge. 

Because I have a mother God who does the same for me.  She endures my mess of disbelief and doubt and confusion, and sees the true me behind every expression of anger. 

Mia's pushing is instinctual.  So I will be her cushion.  Firm enough to resist a few puncture marks, tender enough to absorb her fierceness, soft enough to give it back as love. 

I will let her find her strength against me.  But I will not be so overcome as to be paralyzed with hurt.  I am tender, but I am not wilting.

And we will make it through this. 




We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Melissa's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.

In the Land of BFFs

Every day, Lauren asks Mia to play dress-up-dresses.  Her dramatic flair and love of everything magical are only satisfied by putting on something with shimmer or sparkle or ruffle, and she satisfies those needs daily.  Singing and dancing and prancing.  She is super willing to play by herself, as she so often does, but oh! -- the addition of a big sister seems to make her heart beat wildly. 

Only, Mia's heart doesn't beat to the same rhythm lately.  She's more about drawing or running or riding her scooter around the street with the little boy next door.  Dress-up-dresses are just not in the lineup of Mia's favorite things to do with a few spare minutes of playtime.  I blame kindergarten.

So yesterday when Lauren made her daily request for dress-ups, I sort of cringed inside.  Mia's learned to say no politely, but sweet little Lauren is still heartbroken with each negative answer.  To be fair to Mia, heartbroken is a common place for Lauren to go.  She's just so tender-souled.  Silly and wild, but so very tender. 

Despite the likelihood (great) of being turned down (again), Lauren presented her plea once more.

"Hey, Mia!  Do you wanna play dress-up-dresses with me?!"

 "Sure."  Mia, with her silvery-blue eyes and big kid pastimes, was casual.  She simply said sure. 

Lauren was beyond her sweet-hearted-self, and I spun around from the kitchen sink to witness the episode more closely.  Lauren froze with bent knees and arms akimbo.  Then she jumped for joy.  "Oh, MIA!!  You're going to play dress-up-dresses!!"

Next thing I knew, she had flung herself into Mia's arms, hugging and dancing around the kitchen.  They giggled until they were breathless and fell to the floor, a heap of sisters.

Mia caught her breath first -- "Lauren!  You are my very BEST friend!"

And that was the exact moment I melted into a puddle and seeped into the floorboards and under the house and became one with the earth: the beautiful, magnificent, nurturing earth. 

It kind of kills me how sweet my girls are. 

A Bright Spot

I crane my neck around the interior of the car, searching for Mia as I exit.  The day is bright and unreasonably warm for February; sunlight blinds me with shafts of white.  I squint against it and raise my arm, laying a strip of shadow over my eyes.

But Mia is not here. 

Lauren has bounded up the front steps already, Landon is in my arms, the wind is blowing, and I am impatient. 

Turning back to make sure Lauren isn't dashing away towards the steeper steps, I think of course she won't; she's a bit afraid of those steps.  I think what a sweet little thing she is growing to be.  So tender and helpful.  So willful and smart.  So lovely, there, as the sun rests on the curve of her impossibly soft cheek. 

Inside the car, I check the front seats: sometimes Mia hides.  But she is not there.  I call her name and wait...

And Landon gurgles at me, smiling like I've just told the most entertaining joke.  I look down, nuzzle his neck and marvel: this is the most darling baby in the world.  I could stare at him for hours and not become bored with the beauty there. 

But where is Mia?  Is she ducking under the back seat?  I shift my body to one side, and the white sunlight at my back is cut off behind my movement.  The light no longer glares, and there, in the warmth left over, sits Mia.  Right where she always was.

"Oh! You've been there the whole time?!"

"Could you really not see me, mama?"

"I couldn't!  The light was too bright, and you got lost in it.  Your bright spot hid you for a minute!"

She laughs and jumps out of the car, long legs at sharp angles with long arms, long hair, long years. 

I cannot breath, suddenly.  Time is constricting around me -- around us -- like roots around succulent earth: taking everything, changing it, and leaving nothing untouched.

She is a bright spot, hiding in plain sight. 

A Demonstration on the Differences Between Boys and Girls

Mia is standing on the front sidewalk, ready to ride off into the almost-sunset on her pink and white scooter.  She's quite a good scooter-er, now.  Speedy and fearless with her hair flying backwards, a super-hero cape of many strands.  The boy from two houses down is on his new bike.  He is her neighborhood playmate, and a sweet, energetic boy.

Their conversation is definitely worthy of eavesdropped attention, but I make myself known, instead.  (This time.)  I park myself on the top step and listen to the way Mia's voice changes from dependent and questioning towards confident and knowing.  She holds her own with this second-grader.  I marvel at her assurance.  Was I ever so outgoing with kids at that age?  I must have been -- I did have friends and I remember being wildly silly -- but the overwhelming feeling I get when remembering childhood is one of personal insecurity. 

But Mia, she is strong and tall and straight.  The boy, I fancy, is in love.  How could he not be?  (Probably all kinds of ways, but when I see my girl, I fall in love, myself.  She is exquisite.  Even on this day, with tangled hair and a mouth stained red from too much Valentine's candy.)

He is telling her about his bike -- a truly wonderful story of generosity and hope: bikes were donated to every child who used to attend a now-demolished, tornado-destroyed elementary school.  I smile and shake my head.  The outpouring of gifts and time and love our community has seen is powerful to behold.  And we behold so much of it, every day.

He talks about his old scooters, his Valentine's Day party, his long-ago trip to the hospital for the flu.  Somewhere in the middle of medicine and overnight nurses, his eyes light on our pumpkin.  You remember, right?  The pumpkin I talked about doing away with a month ago?  The one that's been sitting on our front stoop since before Halloween? 

That pumpkin. 

Feel free to imagine its state of decay, because I'm not sharing a current photo.  Perhaps the shame from our laziness is a deterrent..  Anyway, you're welcome.  It's not a pretty sight, with its orange faded to a putrid, foggy yellow on top, just where a few slight snowfalls have dampened its crown.  It's begun to cave-in like the lip of a too-wide volcano. 

"What do you think of our pumpkin?" I ask.  There is a twinkle in my eye.  If I'd asked this question to my daughters, which I have, the response I'd receive, and have received, would be a mixture of dramatic, downturned faces and belligerent declarations of disgust.  Super fun to watch.

But this boy.  He is not a girl. 

He stares at the lump of softening, pulpy matter, eyes wide with appreciation, and then...

"Can I shoot it?"

I am left completely speechless at the pure, unabashed boy-ness of his response. 

I feel a great and pressing urge to brush up on my boy-survival skills now, if you'll excuse me.



Note: Said boy later proceeded to carry the rotting pumpkin to the woods beside our house as a valiant favor.  How should I thank him?  Fresh cookies?  A round of BBs for his gun*?  Free access to all future rotting organic matter?

*I have no idea if he does, in fact, own a pumpkin-slaying weapon.  Maybe he wanted to shoot it with a light-saber.**

**Do light sabers shoot?

NoteII: See above reference to brushing up on boy-survival skills.  I need help.

It's Kind of Like a Predator, Only More Infuriating

The apple corer lay in a glistening puddle of juice on the kitchen counter.  Bits of pulpy, crushed apple poked from its center, and a few blackish-brown seeds tumbled into the puddle. 

Mia and Lauren sat crunching on apple halves.  While I cleaned the kitchen -- a task that is never actually complete around here -- they talked.  About birthday parties and pajamas and stories.  Then, before I could get the apple's remnants wiped away, Mia piled all of the seeds into a group.  She held them in her palm, poking at them.

"Mom, what's inside an apple seed?"

I hate it when she asks questions I don't know how to answer. Which happens on a daily basis.

"Hmm.  I think it must be all of the ingredients that are needed to grow an apple tree."  There.  Hope that sounds detailed enough to be believable but simple enough to not confuse me later if the questions continue.

She walked around for a few minutes, seeds in hand.  Little bits of promised fruit.  Her favorite fruit.

"You know what?"  She'd come to a stop before the door to the hallway, her head tilted with a plan.  "We need to plant these and have our OWN apple trees!  We'll wait until it's a hot, hot summer day, and then dig a few holes, and plant the seeds.  Doesn't that sound like a good idea?!"

"It does!"  I got an improbable image of a tiny orchard popping up in our back yard.  Dropping warm apples on our September lawn in a few (like a few dozen) years.

"Yeah!" she continued.  "But we'll have to be very careful to do it only in the summer, when no animals are out looking for food.  We'll dig them in niiiiiice and deep.  That way, no creditors will find them."

I was genuinely puzzled.

Until I realized how closely creditors rhymes with predators. 

Then I nodded, imbuing each bob of my head with the wisdom of a sage.  Of course we'd be careful of the creditors.

We all know how much they'd love to steal our hard-won apples.

A Holiday Exclamation from Mia

*sigh*

Great gracious.

I do apologize that you've had to witness

such craziness around here.

But rest assured...

I'm here to keep things normal.

I'm here to be angelic.

I'm here...

to open presents.

And if everyone around me

is driven wild by Christmas,

I'll just have to remind them...

to be cool.

Just.  Be.  Cool.

And have a VERY Merry Christmas!

The Most Important Thing

“What’s the most important thing humans need to have to be alive?”

My kindergartner’s eyes twinkled across the dinner table as she anticipated stumping me with some newfound knowledge. Since beginning school, she’s taken a know-it-all thrill in relaying her newest educational conquests each day.

“Did you know that baby bats…” she’ll begin. “And the quarter has Washington’s picture…” she reminds me. Quite often, she relays something I’d either forgotten or never knew in the first place. (Bats, by the way, are fascinating creatures.)

There are also times she offers a scrap of information with such joy, I can’t bear telling the truth: I already knew that. I figure that even if I’m being somewhat disingenuous, she’s reinforcing her education by teaching others what she learned that day. And she’s adding to her excitement over what she might learn next.

But part of me (probably the know-it-all part which she has, indeed, inherited from me) wants to stump her once in a while. I want to be the one to bring scraps of awesome information on which she can sharpen her mind.

Since my daughter is usually skeptical of any knowledge I might presume to assert, I find myself trying overly hard to convince her of my intelligence. If we’re talking about an upcoming event, I try to work in a discussion about the event’s topic – something fascinating, of course. Or I’ll insert a sneaky lesson into every instance of conversation. If she asks for a story, I’ll do my darndest to make it address a current issue we’re working to resolve at home, like sharing or compassion.

While she does love learning something new, she almost never sits still long enough to hear my pretentious story when all she wanted was a bit of imaginary entertainment.

So much for bringing an awesome scrap of information, eh? Now, if I’d invite her to add bits of creativity and excitement to the story, then we might be getting somewhere.

As it is, I’ve had to train myself to not be quite so intentional. I don’t mean as a parent in general; I wholeheartedly believe that it’s my job to think ahead about how I should be parenting my children. But at least in these moments of excited discussion, I need to take her lead. Let her be intentional. Let her be interesting.

When she asks a question about what’s necessary to sustain life, that’s probably not the time to wax philosophically about how much the human race depends upon peace and love in order to thrive. It’s probably not the time to list, in decreasing order of importance, all the parts of our world that keep us alive: water, food, shelter, medicine, oxygen, etc. And it’s definitely not the time to show just how intelligent I, as her mother, can be. 

I have nothing to prove.

Except, perhaps, just how much I love the second-hand experience of her joyful learning. So as she sat across the table from me, waiting for my answer and expecting to tell me something of which I was sure to be uninformed, I tossed aside any moral lesson I might’ve wished to impart.

Instead, I guessed an answer, as she so desired. And I guessed wrong.

“No, mom!” she crowed with good humor. “Humans need AIR to BREATHE! That’s the MOST important thing!”

And, schooled in the way to interact with her in these moments, I smiled. It was the simplest answer all along.

 

[Originally published here.]