moments

Sometimes your eyes startle me; they’re huge, even when framed by your long bangs; looking at me, assessing, telling me, look at me Mommy.

I love how the two of you are thrilled at the simplest things: the arrival of your water bottles at the table during dinner, at the joy of running across one end of the living room to the other, the stray cat on his regular visit to the neighbor’s garbage bin. These things are greeted by shrieks, and much waving of arms. You teach me joy, through these simple things. How can I frown, when you’re so happy?

When you cry, demanding my presence, I sometimes feel that I am the child, being scolded. You both call out “Mommy” very clearly now, and that word that I waited so long to hear from you is now being thrown at me with alarming frequency. I imagine the subtext that comes with each “Mommy”. Come get me, Mommy. I’m sleepy, Mommy. She took my toy Mommy, do something! And when I do come, whatever it was that you were scolding me about slowly melts away, and I am forgiven. I am always forgiven, as long as I come. And I am amazed. And I hope you will continue to forgive this Mommy of yours who can be such a mess sometimes, literally and figuratively.

And I remember what I wrote soon after you were born: