With warm weather has come another first: independent outside play. Nora is so excited to be able play just outside the kitchen window with Pip as her watchdog, and I’m grateful for newness that entertains while I wash dishes.
Standing inside, elbow deep in suds, I watch my little girl through a screen and feel her tiny voice dance across the yard. Mostly, Nora forgets that I’m there gazing through the window and I get a glimpse of her personality as she cares for her baby(-of-the-moment), unaware of anything else in the world. Other times, we chat on the breeze, exactly as I envisioned when dreaming of motherhood. There’s something so perfect and June Cleaver about watching Nora play outside as I wipe plates and bowls clean.
Every day it seems life is more magical than the next. I’m so excited to see my little girl delight in simple new things like being “big” enough to play outside “alone,” that I don’t even mourn the loss of the baby any more. For a long time, I looked in her face searching for the tiny being that came from my belly and slept on my breast, not willing to let her go. Now, I look at Nora’s deep brown eyes and I envision the third grader, the teenager, or even the young woman that she might become.
She is still our sweet, huggable girl who loves to curl up in my lap for a nap and a cuddle and who loves to ride perched upon her Dada’s shoulders, but this spring she seems ever more grown up. She is fascinated with becoming an adult and all day says things like, “When I grow up, I too will sit in a grownup chair… When I grow up, I too will wear a grownup sweater… When I grow up, I too will…” It’s such proper English, I can’t help but think how quickly that will happen.
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