Daddy-Daughter Dance

This weekend was the annual Daddy-Daughter Dance in our town. A lovely event that my oldest daughter and husband look forward to each year. It is the one special night that she has; the one big event that is just hers. The one that really doesn't involve me at all.

My participation surrounds her dress, her shoes, the jewelry and corsage. I help with hairstyles, and putting on just the right amount of lipstick; enough so that she feels glamorous, and looks eight at the same time! But once she is showered, blown dry, straight-ironed, polished, lip-sticked, blinged, zippered, tied and has done a practice twirl, I hand her over to her Dad. He bends down on one knee and puts on her shoes, Cinderella style. He gently puts on her corsage and gives her a kiss...they are so happy together. Quietly I watch as my involvement in the night ends. 

The night becomes one for a little girl and her Dad. Despite my many texts, I hear very little throughout the course of the night. My husband, quite suspiciously, doesn't receive cell service inside the school gym where the dance is held. He gets fantastic cell service in Japan, but for some reason, on this night, in this gym, with his little girl all to himself...he doesn't get my texts...at least not all of them.

They dance; she still wants to dance with her Dad. He watches her twirl, and hold dear her friends. He experiences her pure happiness on that special night, a night they share. At home I anticipate their return, their stories and giggles, their secret looks. If I am lucky they show me a new move they discovered together under twinkling lights. As I listen to them recount their night together I am reminded;

she is just as much her Dads as she is mine.

And we both love her so very much.

Rock-A-Bye Chair

The "rock-a-bye chair." That's what she's called. Silly, right? To name a chair, a piece of furniture. To know that she's a she. But she has a name. My old, worn, ugly recliner, smelling like a special place. A mix of shampoo, washed blankets, fresh air, faded material and nine years of life. She has stood guard in many rooms, enjoyed two different homes, completed two stints in storage, and rocked and soothed and calmed and made all better on more nights than I could ever count. 

 And I love her. I love what she represents. I love where she's taken my children and I. I look at her faded gray material, her worn wooden handle, her stains, and she means love. I have loved my babies in that chair. I patted bottoms and rubbed backs and sang lullabies as eyelids became heavy. I listened to stories and I read stories. I solved mysteries and disputes. I have cried tears and dried tears. I have raised three children in that chair.

She is the chair I tried so very hard to nurse my first born in. The chair my tiny, hungry baby and I cried in when it just wasn't working, but stubbornly I wouldn't give up. She was also the chair that felt the sweet relief of abandoning what I thought I had to do for my baby, for doing was what was right for my baby. She felt us relax and find nourishment the best way we could.

She is the chair that I spent middle of the night hours in, holding and crying over my five day old boy as I watched the horror of Hurricane Katrina unfold on the television before me. And months after that disaster, she is the chair I went to in attempts to get my little boy back to sleep night after night. After night.

She is the chair I went to so I could hold on tightly to my youngest who needed to sleep upright for so many weeks, just shy of five months old and so ill. Syringing liquids into her tiny mouth, tracking intake and output and knowing that we would be admitted to the hospital once again.

 And all the while we rocked, and soothed and knew it was alright.

It wasn't but a few weeks ago, when I could make up a bedtime story for my youngest, and sing one or two songs as she drifted off to sleep. I could bury my nose in her wild but beautifully brown hair and smell lavender. Or apples. Or vanilla.  I could kiss her forehead a million times simply because the top of her head was just below my mouth. She would snuggle beside me, legs across my middle, her sleepy head on my shoulder. Her breathing would steady and she would ask one more question about our day. We would watch the stars. She would ask me to pull back the curtain so she could see the moon. And I had the privilege of watching it all happen as we rocked together in the chair.

But now. Now she is quickly approaching three. She's a pistol. She's fighting sleep. And she no longer needs the chair, even if I do. Now she wants to fall asleep in bed. Stretched out, not touching, not snuggled conspiratorially under the covers. There, but not really together. She can no longer get comfortable in the chair, in my arms. It is as if she is leaving me for something bigger. Something less soothing. Something less...us.

 On occasion I will rock my children in our chair again. We will stuff ourselves into the chair to talk about bad days at school, or hurt feelings, or the unfairness of life, of disappointment. Our legs will become entwined to read a story or just sit and be together. 

The "rock-a-bye" chair is entering retirement. She's still a comfortable beast. She's a friend, she is a constant, a part of us. And she knows. She's got wear and tear, and squeaks and grinds. But even her noise is rhythmic and repetitive and part of the music of my night. I will miss every part of rocking my children in our "rock-a-bye" chair.

Forty-two Minutes & Six Dollars

In my naïve days, I envisioned my family traveling as a pack; a small little herd off to face our next adventure together. But with an eight year old, a six year old, and a two year old, I now realize that more often than not, we need to divide and conquer, particularly when it comes to schedules.

Tonight my oldest daughter took her grandmother to a Mother/Grandmother-Daughter/Granddaughter tea. My son was not thrilled to be left out, and jumped at the chance to head to the ball field to hit some balls with his Dad. He even got to run the bases twice!

That left me with our little one, who also felt left out. My little one, the one who is not so little anymore. The one whose birth calmed my spirit and soothed my heart as the chaos of three children spread throughout my life. I spend every day with my baby. As a stay-at-home mom I am rarely without her by my side.

But tonight, we did something just special enough. Something we've never done before...a rare treat when her life is so often dictated by, and wrapped up tightly in, the lives of her older siblings. I took her to get an ice cream. After dinner. And it was our secret. And she was so excited about our secret that she told everyone. She announced it to Grammy, to Daddy, to her brother and sister. And she loved every second of it. The anticipation!

After a husband and three children, I have finally found my live-in ice cream buddy. I love to go get ice cream. Any time of day, any day of the week (May through September that is)! And now I have a buddy. And I love it.

Of course, getting ice cream, just the two of us, after dinner, was pretty cool. But even cooler than the whole ice cream with rainbow sprinkles bit, was the fact that she got to eat it in the front seat of the van. Unbuckled. My little spitfire thought that was the cat's meow. She was floored when I told her she could crawl up to the front with me. Still unsure of what she'd heard, she asked in her heart-melting voice "my come up with you and be not buckled?" two or three times before she gingerly crossed the threshold to the front. She sat carefully, hunched over her dish of ice cream, methodically picking spilled sprinkles off of the seat.

And then, after the first few bites, she lifted her head and looked around. She relaxed. She noticed that I had rolled the window down all the way and then the fun really began. Her head went out the window. Her little face pressed as close to the mirror as possible. She spotted customers with take-out bags. She spotted flowers. And traffic. And a pigeon.

Now, of course, this isn't her first time out of the house. She runs errands with me on a daily basis...and does so with astute observation. She's a champion side-kick. A compliant school volunteer, an enthusiastic baseball and softball cheerleader, an efficient errand runner. And if we miss our daily run to Dunkin' Donuts, or our bi-weekly trek to Target, she becomes concerned. She feels her world slightly off balance. She's also accustomed to sitting in the front seat of the van. We do so four out of the five days in a school week. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for the bus to pick up, and more importantly waiting for the bus to drop off.

But clearly this time was different. For her and for me. She had my full attention. I wasn't checking the time, or email, or text messaging. I wasn't worried that we'd missed the bus. I wasn't worried about post school day moods. I wasn't preoccupied with amounts of homework and reading logs and spelling words. We weren't sitting at the end of our mundane street. 

We sat facing each other, cross legged. I let my ice cream melt as I focused all of my attention on her adorable little body enjoying every morsel of her ice cream, enjoying every moment of our special date. Forty-two minutes and just under six dollars is all it took. And I hope she doesn't soon forget how much I was there with her.

I need to do this with her more often. She basked in the sunshine of my full attention. And yet she was so happy to crash her brother's base running and ball hitting extravaganza instead of going straight home. She was content to be back with the rest of the pack.

Even a two and a half year old needs to experience a fun hiccup in the routine every once in a while.