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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Even an ugly skirt or dress is better than pants. Every single chance she gets, she’ll leave her jeans in a pile on the floor so she can wear a pretty princess dress…and any dress qualifies as a pretty princess dress. The favorite one is her black and white “polkey-dot” dress, as she calls it. We wash it as often as we can, but I’m sure it gets worn 3-5 times between washings. It makes no difference to her.

She’s got this wildly beautiful curly hair that matches her personality. A little spot on the back of her head is prone to a terrible scraggly tangle nest, but I think she finally understands why it must be brushed, so at least there is a bit less whining about it. Her eyes are huge and blue and kind, and she looks at me with innocent, knowing smiles in the (very brief) pauses between her chattering spells. She’s very perceptive and intrigued by the world around her. She asks lots of questions, but she also answers lots of them with her preschool wisdom and the perspective from which she sees.

“When the sign says ‘Man’, you can cross, but when the sign says ‘Hand’ that means you don’t cross,” she says to me. I love that she says things in ways that no one else in the world would.

She’s always been a very expressive child, and I have the pictures to prove her earliest facial expressions. As time has passed and she’s inched upward, the expressiveness seems to have grown as well, and you’d be hard pressed to find a sharper, more exuberant personality anywhere. It’s something I desperately want to protect for her, and yet I know that there is only so much I can do, and my job looks more like listening to God than putting up fence around fence around fence. Navigating through the seasons of life is not easy for a parent. I understand now. My prayer is that she will be silly and joyful her whole life, just like a child, and yet, will find the depth of God’s wisdom near to her heart.

Today I peeled, seeded and chopped up the first butternut squash we’ve ever purchased, and not even realizing she’d be interested, she stood beside me watching and asked, “Oh, can I feel it mama?” I let her feel it with her fingers and she giggled. I will cherish that funny little moment forever.

She has a bright face and a beautiful big heart to go with it. One quirk is her love for her “babies”. Each of them has a name and each of them has a very special place in her heart: “Clifford” (pronounced Clevver by her) the big black dog (not red) that was a gift from Grandpa Brad, “Franklin” the dog Elias ‘gave’ her when he was born in the hospital, “Gigi” a no-longer-white dog that came as a gift from friends for her 3rd birthday, “Baby Puppy” a little tiny dog that must be with us at all times, and “Bunny Girl” who has been her favorite from the beginning. Bunny Girl is so much the favorite that she no longer has a nose on account of Alaina getting her teeth caught in the nose-threads and mama needing to remove the nose for her safety. I love the way she loves her babies. They’re a part of her, and she is quite the little mama. I love how she deals with them tenderly but firmly, and it’s one clue for me that despite my shortcomings, I’m passing some good things on to her.

She tells me we need to have 5 kids in our family. I agree with her, but explain that we have to pray and ask God about that. Every night when I put her and Judah to sleep, I ask them if they want me to pray for them. I like asking, because I like them knowing that they have a choice to accept and participate or not. If they say no (which doesn’t happen often), I still pray, but just to myself, not out loud. Mostly though, I pray aloud, with my hand cupped over one or both of their cheeks and my face close to theirs. Both of them think that part of praying is cupping someone’s face in their hands. I totally love it. When I’m sad, Alaina will sit on my lap facing me and cup my face in her hands as if to tell me she’s praying for me. I love that there is already a knowing in her heart that we should always ask God for help if something is wrong. I dream of the things I wish for her in her life, and I pray for each one. I don’t make ‘little-kid’ prayers for her when I pray, because I don’t mind that she doesn’t understand most of what I’m asking God for on her behalf. She doesn’t mind not knowing either, for the most part, but when she asks me, “What is it mean that Jesus hides His word in my heart,” I take great pleasure in explaining that to her the best way I can. I also love that when I pray for Judah to be a man of integrity and purity that he responds with a loud, gravelly, and exuberant “AMEN!” In fact, that is his response whenever I pray for him, and it tickles me so. Neither of them will let me leave their room until I’ve prayed, which I love also. Accountability at its finest.

I guess I’m feeling a little mommy-sadness as I’m watching my little baby girl sprouting into a strong and capable child-person. I hold her in my arms and hold back tears knowing that soon she won’t fit there the same way, nor will she want to be so near to me. She wants to run, and dance, and fly. And I want her to also. But I also pray that Jesus saves a special room in heaven for me to go to and relive all these precious and tender moments that I can’t seem to capture and keep in the ways I’d want to.