A motherly moment
Even at 3 years old, the opportunities she gives me to cuddle her up in my lap are fleet and sometimes squirmy moments. Saturday, after splashing in her pool and making it rain with the hose, her lips were nearly blue and I had to talk her out of the water so I could wrap her up and warm her. She’s so tall now that it was nigh impossible to warm her toes while also warming her torso in those small towels you feel compelled to buy when you have a new baby. She’s wrapped and tucked, her head under my chin and I don’t even remember what all we talked about those magical 10 minutes, possibly her new fwip-fwops, or school or bugs, but I was charmed.
The day was sunny and breezy and altogether perfect for a spring day in May. We have a robin family that has taken residence in the shrubs on the side of the house and we watched one or the other of the parents flying in, waiting for safety before swooping in to their nestful of babies with their mouthfuls of worm. Sometimes we peek at them from our sun porch, the little yellow maws that bob up and down. The cat’s interest is purely predatory, I’ve been trying to get a good photo and Ruby wants to jump up and down on the sofa there by the window so as to really freak the mommy robin out. Although that’s not her intention, it is the effect.
She was making up jokes recently, and it was like looking through a kaliedescope and trying to figure out what little shard of plastic made the image and colors appear. These jokes were little stories, just like other jokes, but the preschooler doesn’t know for irony or juxtaposition, she knows that what she is saying makes her laugh and so she does. It’s tricky when she asks ME to make up a joke, I’m unsure of her protocol.
I’m sure, in a matter of moments, she’ll be in high school and self-sufficient and hardly around and I wonder how much my heart will ache. Or how much my own mother’s ached when I moved away for college. And even though there are 15 years of skinned knees, homework projects and slammed doors between here and there, it makes me a little sad to be sitting in this office chair, tapping on a computer for a few dollars while my perfectly wonderful daughter is charming other people.
The day was sunny and breezy and altogether perfect for a spring day in May. We have a robin family that has taken residence in the shrubs on the side of the house and we watched one or the other of the parents flying in, waiting for safety before swooping in to their nestful of babies with their mouthfuls of worm. Sometimes we peek at them from our sun porch, the little yellow maws that bob up and down. The cat’s interest is purely predatory, I’ve been trying to get a good photo and Ruby wants to jump up and down on the sofa there by the window so as to really freak the mommy robin out. Although that’s not her intention, it is the effect.
She was making up jokes recently, and it was like looking through a kaliedescope and trying to figure out what little shard of plastic made the image and colors appear. These jokes were little stories, just like other jokes, but the preschooler doesn’t know for irony or juxtaposition, she knows that what she is saying makes her laugh and so she does. It’s tricky when she asks ME to make up a joke, I’m unsure of her protocol.
I’m sure, in a matter of moments, she’ll be in high school and self-sufficient and hardly around and I wonder how much my heart will ache. Or how much my own mother’s ached when I moved away for college. And even though there are 15 years of skinned knees, homework projects and slammed doors between here and there, it makes me a little sad to be sitting in this office chair, tapping on a computer for a few dollars while my perfectly wonderful daughter is charming other people.
