Lullabye

There are days Molly's little (BIG) personality makes me burst with happiness and sadness at the same time.  Today was one of those days.  While at Carter's, she asked me if she could play at the Lego table.  Sure, I tell her.  Remember your manners.  There, four others near her age, sprinkled around the table.  And what does Molly do?  She introduces herself, asks the other children's names.  They all kind of look at her, alien, cheeks pink and puffy and lips parted slightly.  Neither happy nor a frown, just O. 

She presses.  "My name is Molly Piper Watts.  What's your name?"  I look over my shoulder, a quick look.  She chooses a chair, yellow and pint-sized of course, and gently pushes it closer to the Legos, takes a few in her hand.  A few moments go by and one of the others, the girl with the red hair, mumbles her name in response without looking up. 

I turn back to what I was doing, the Clearance racks.  Pretty soon, here comes Molly.  I knew she was coming even before she spoke.  She's just that way, My Molly.  Energy abuzz-buzz-buzz all around any time she is near.  "Hey, mom, I made new friends!  Come and meet them, will you?"  She looks pleased with herself and very matter-of-fact.  It is then that my heart starts to hurt a little for her.  I know what's coming. 

It is always like this, shopping with her.  I get involved in what I'm doing and then have to stop because she has a request.  My train of thought is forced to come to a screeching halt and something in my brain tells me to bookmark what I was doing or else I'll forget.  So I do.  Remember, I think.  Leggings to coordinate.  Leggings to coordinate.  Changing tracks, I follow her to the table where she proceeds to tell her new friends MY name.  And her daddy's name.  And that she has a brother and a sister, and did they have brothers and sisters, too? 

"Molly..." I began, but it was no use.  As soon as her name leaves my mouth, the kids all look up at me with a collective, indifferent shrug. 

Doesn't she understand that we're IMPOSING, what with all this talk, talk, talking?  "Hi there.  It's nice to meet all of you,"  I say with an apologetic tone. 

"Hiiii-iii," Red sing-songs back.  I can tell she's tired, her pretty blue eyes glazed over.  Probably her mom was dragging her all over town today, too. 

I tell Molly just a few more minutes and we can leave, I promise.  Ask them if they wanna hear a knock-knock joke from your new book, I think only to myself.  Of course I don't say this aloud to Molly, of course not.  Then I would be prodding, like a pushy Jewish mother.  I go back to what I was doing but can't remember right away what it was I was looking for so I chalk it up to not being THAT important if I couldn't recall it anyhow.  I have a kneejerk response to sit down at the table and ask, "Did you hear her ask your name? You DID?  Then why didn't you ANSWER, for Pete's sake?"  ...but of course I do not.  I mean, aren't people teaching their kids how to INTERACT these days?!  I just sigh, let down the breath I've been holding in for what seems like forever.  I'm done here, I suppose.  I am trying to be done here, more like it.  I'll find leggings another day, they'll probably be even cheaper then.  And then think to myself as if to throw my hands up in the air: Ah, well.  Typical 4-year-olds.  Next!
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My oldest daughter is a lot like me and my heart breaks for her even now.  Only, there's something special about her, you know?  Something so special that it is not just her dad and myself who recognize it.  Like any mother, I feel a ferocious longing here in my chest to shield her and protect that tender, kind spirit she has.  It's a dull ache.  Not unpleasant, it is a reminder that I can still feel something that truly matters, and feel it really hard.  The world has a way of coming at us all in a terrible, sometimes tragically beautiful way.  So used to putting one foot in front of the other, though, we become numb.  Unfeeling.  One day we're dreaming of what we'll grow up and become and the next thing we know...we wake up and don't recognize the person we've turned into.  Then when you hear a song on the radio from back when, a glimpse of your former self is what you see and you get that roaring feeling, excited almost, and frankly a little high from a thrill you hadn't experienced in so long. 

I've learned a lot of new things since becoming a mother.  I've learned how to diaper and care for, well sure.  I've learned to fold tiny ears of curly cartilage down just so that the water doesn't run in them when I'm giving a bath.  I've learned that each of my children have something unique about them that soothes them into sleep.  Well, sometimes anyway.  Too, I have learned that many times it is just best to surrender...put them down in their beds and let them find their own sweet spot: the funny-angled crook of the neck, rolled over on a tummy, arms flung wildly above a head, a pinky toe slightly cocked.  It is at these times I wish so hard that they would just go to sleep already, and they struggle for a few minutes to get comfortable.  Here now, I want to say.  Here, let me get that, like when you open a door for someone you don't even know at QuikTrip.  Now with the babies, when I've tried everything and nothing will work, I try my darndest to keep my hands off them sometimes and just let them get to that peaceful spot how best they see fit.  But the mommy inside me?  She wants to wave her magic mommy wand and have all the answers so that her children don't suffer anything, lest it be restless nights, no date for the prom, or the second dip of butter brickle finding its fate accidentally on the floor. 

Yes, I've learned a few things.  I wish I could know more, and I will...eventually.  I'm learning as I go, practically, and I guess that is how a lesson really stays.  With Molly, I'm learning to pick my battles and I guess today I just needed to let her find her sweet spot, socially speaking.  She'll never see those kids again, true.  They weren't her friends for the rest of her life but for 15 minutes, yes, they were.  I guess when you're a child and the world is a vast and expansive place of green and blue and lines of Red Rover, Red Rover, 15 minutes is as sacred as a lifetime.  And--I know My Molly--3 months from now she'll bring it up and ask me if I remember meeting her friends at the Carter's store and tell me some random fragment of her skippy conversations with them, or she will ask me did I know what had happened to "that little girl" that her knee was skinned? 
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And on that day I'll feel something again deep within myself, a kind of reminding feeling paying homage for today.  I think what I'm learning that is most important is not to let MY issues interfere with how Molly perceives the world or her reaction to it.  She wants to talk to everyone she meets?  Fine.  Let her.  After all, she's 4.  She's only 4.  She doesn't have to know yet about the bad people in this world.  She doesn't need to know or even hear details of news on television.  Sure as God is my witness, I don't want to have to be the bubble buster, the mom who yanks on her child's arm not to go anywhere near that crazy old woman, do you hear me?  Far be it from me to tell her we can't share an ice cream sundae because we'll get fat.  And please, Lord, help me not to hover and correct, control.  Let her be a child already!  Let her enjoy life with reckless abandon, for right now anyway.  Let her have no inhibitions or worry about the mortgage or meningitis exposure.  Let her be encouraged by praise and that soaring pride she must feel when she does something, anything, everything.  Let her empty out her piggy bank to help tornado victims, every last penny if she feels led to do it.  Let her own legs be her own legs that let her dance and jump into mud puddles and kick way up high like a Rockette falsetto.  Let her imagine herself into worlds where she is a princess everyone loves and adores.  Let her find her own sweet spot. 
...just for now.  Just for a little while longer.  <3