I am weepy today, and sad, and confused. Someone I treasure is making me think hard about who and what I am. This morning I drove the children to school and as Whit and I were heading to CES he said, “Why is that lady sad?” pointing to someone on the sidewalk. I did not see her, but I said, “Well, maybe she is just sad.” And out of the blue, he said, “Mummy, you get sad sometimes,” and I said, “Yes, I do, Whit. How does that make you feel?” And he said, “Fine! Just fine! Are we at school yet?”
Oh to be three.
Then I picked Gracie up and asked her why she had taken her (lice-repelling – the trick is keeping the hair tied up) hair elastics out. She said, matter-of-factly, “Well, because they made me look cute. And I don’t want to look cute.” “Oh,” I said, “What do you want to look?” She looked at me as though I was stupid and said, “Beautiful.”
Help me.
“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” – Anna Quindlen
I am definitely 100% guilty of this. I hope this blog is my own little attempt to capture some of the details, the mundane moments that I can see even through my tears on a day like this.
Allergic reaction to pecans that I put into cookies I baked today. Oh guilty mother!