I always wanted to be a mommy in this far off way, the way you want to be an astronaut or a cowgirl. Not because I had any idea what being a mommy means but because it's something that grown ups do, and it seemed fun, or at least something I could be good at, so you know sign me up.
I never guessed it would be the best thing. The thing that makes me say, "really God, Really, I get to do this." The thing that makes me cry my eyes out with both happy and sad tears, the thing that cracks me straight up, the thing that makes me look at my baby being three big years old already and makes me feel kind of panicky. As if He doesn't have something else to use me for, I'm a slow learner, I'm sure you've noticed by now.
Tonight as I made dinner, a big salad with green beans and mushrooms on the side (I got the evil eye from the kiddos), Chloe got herself dressed up in a tinkerbell costume. She was so proud of herself, so taken with her princessness. She asked me if I could change her hair into a ponytail (something about the spinning), and to put on a "dancing song." I could not wipe the grin off my face.
The next thing I knew I looked up from my chopping and she had found a baby doll and was holding it by both arms, bent low so the dolls feet touched the ground, swaying to the music. I decided dinner could wait, I decided to burn that image into my memory, I stood there crying, not allowing myself to take a picture because I would have had to look away.
She looked up at me and told me she was practicing for the Daddy daughter dance, and I just lost it. There is such good and bad wrapped up in being a mother. This good, it's so very good, but it wouldn't be nearly as joyful if it wasn't for the pain. I wouldn't realize how amazing that moment was if I hadn't lived through all the ones filled with pain, the ones where I begged God to fix all the broken places in her, in me, in us.
We're mother and daughter, sure, but the reason that sometimes I can't take my eyes of of her is because we're comrades her and I. We went in side by side and fought some of the biggest battles of our lives, we still fight them from time to time. We are bound together by a good God who puts the lonely in families, who takes the darkest days and turns them into laughter, who gives us grace upon grace.
