How I love thee
Let me count the ways.
I love the bravery mixed with trepidation I saw when you sat, strong and unflinching, as the dentist put needle after needle into your little gums. I love the strength you showed when you said that pulling your first front tooth hurt “a bit”, when I was singing and stroking your hair to prevent myself from crying at the sight. I love the goofy dance you did that same night at the front door when Nikki brought you a meal of soft Indian dishes. You wiggled out the strain of the day in her honour.
I love the way you show me with your body how you’ve learned a star fish can pull in its limbs, curing into a little ball to avoid “being eaten by a shark”. I love the mix of steadfast confidence and pure baby tears you’ve shown me at drop off at your new school. Your inner strength makes your deep vulnerability surprising to me still after 5 years.
I love the way your face lights up with pure joy as you jump into the lake unassisted, but closely watched, and you can’t help but burst with “I love you”s.
I love the laissez-faire way you decided that today would be the day you would begin jumping into the lake without safe parental arms to cushion your splash. You marched to the end of the dock and did it without fanfare or announcements. You just jumped!
I love the way you tried pushing and pulling, laughing and crying, yelling and whispering secrets with your cousin—all the while loving every minute of your new social life as a bigger girl. I loved hearing the way you found ways to needle her soft spots, and then strengthen your connection with a quiet “I love you”. Every moment was pure experimentation, learning and wonderment at the way another human being can behave.
I love the unbridled energy you bring to every step you take, every scene that plays out in your imagination and then onto our floor (your stage), and every breath I seize upon, waiting to see if I have to tell you not to….
I need these reminders today, this week and this month. I started September like everyone else excited to get back to work, started on new projects and the kids off into “their own thing”. But two weeks in, I’m remembering (again) that there is no “their own thing” yet. I am still their rock and their all. I cannot venture into my own selfish reverie about what I can get done today, because my days are still full of surprises.
I wake up unrested yet again because my little boy has again decided that he needs to be near the mother ship. He has to wake me up, find the mattress besides my bed and sleep fitfully enough to keep us from getting into REM sleep. I am not amused. I am “done” with being woken up for I can’t tell what. I am tired and want full nights of sleep again!
I am distracted from my to-do list, and float in the ambiguity that has become the work side of my life, because I’m not quite sure I can leave them to move in and out of school without my touch before and after. Her first tears at the door of class since she started Montessori 2 years ago serve only to remind me that I am still mother to two very small, inexperienced people who’ve just barely arrived on this planet. People who continue to look to me for certainty, reassurance and encouragement—even when they can’t tell me what they did this morning in school or seem to ignore me in favour of Diego.
It’s one of those sigh—breathe—take it for what it is—moments on which I look to Karen Miller for guidance. I can’t rush them, I can’t change them, I can’t predict them either. I have to be the flexible one, the one whose deep emotional pools refill automatically. I need to remember that every night they want more time, more stories, more lying-in, while I keep expecting them to grow out of those nurturing needs. Will they ever be full?
Remember…I love you, I tell them when they’re too far off to hear.