I guess I’m trying to catch up with my life. Because it seems I am constantly surprised with my children; finding them amazing, surprising, and touching – daily so. My son in the bath this afternoon, carefully laying back to rinse his hair. He has up until recently been afraid to do this; without our prompting he has challenged himself. His body is so long in the tub. He is no longer a baby.
He’s developed this sigh – a sort of Napolean Dynamite, drawn-out half-groan. This sigh is an awesome thing because he does it when he doesn’t get his way. “Mom, can you come cuddle me?” he’ll ask, and as I’m telling him to wait one more minute, I’m doing the dishes – I hear him belt this sigh out. It’s like, “OK, damnit, fine.” Instead of months previous: crying or yelling. I am watching a child learn to cope with the minor (and sometimes not-so-minor) annoyances of life.
My daughter with her jokes. Last night’s bath (I guess we spend a lot of time in the bath, okay?) she noticed our bodies were entirely submerged except my breasts. She started in on scenarios in which my busom was basically flying out of my top when inconvenient. “Like you’d go skydiving, and then plop!” she gestures with her hands. I’m not really that into jokes about my boobs but she caught me off guard so I laughed. And my kids like nothing more than to make me laugh, so: “Plop!” she’d say every now and then that night, leaning in conspiratorily, opening her eyes wide and wrinkling her nose in a way that gets me every time. She has this extra-special new trick when she tells a joke – she crosses her eyes gracefully – I’m not kidding, in a way that is one hundred percent funny and goofy-beautiful. Perfect comedic timing.
My children both, after the class I taught last night at our community college, asked how many students I had – and then were particular about memorizing their names. “You are the best sew-er ever, Mom,” they tell me. They could not have been more supportive and interested in what I was doing. Sometimes I think people spend their lives in search of validation; and sort of as a side-effect of caring for children I have two humans who consistently support and love me of their own volition.
I’m not sure how I deserve such a family; sometimes it kind of seems like it happened overnight and with little intentions of my own.