Monday, May 24, 2010

Rise. Remember. Rinse. Repeat.

So, this weekend, I was able to spend time curled up on the couch with my toddler. Don’t get me wrong, she’s no baby, so I use the T word cautiously with this 19 month old. She’s starting to string words together forming short sentences (poetic ones, if I’m allowed a proud Mummi moment) that densely pack meaning and hilarity.

This particular morning, we have no where to rush off to. I’ve again lost my phone in the crevices of a crumb-catching couch. Sesame Street is our only known destination, and she’s happily (if steathily) biting on her bubble wand between semi-private conversations between herself, Ernie and Emmo-wo (i.e. Elmo).

I figure I have a moment or two to snooze and do. I wake up every few moments to find her waving to Bert’s pidgeon pet, a corn-rowed little boy on television, or one of the Elmos with the squeaky-ish voice. Goodnight for a second or two longer. Goodnight for perhaps 5 minutes...

I wake up again and the house is quiet. Zora’s not in sight and I freeze. I look to all the household places most warned in parenting magazines: the Venetian cords are wound, the outlets still covered, I hear no angry cats, and the screens are all intact. I sit up with my heart no where near my center and find my daughter nestled quietly with her Big Bird doll near my ankles. She’s become an adept couch-climber.

So I realize I have another thing in common with my mom, though, this feeling doesn’t haunt me, as I can imagine it haunted her. I share some of the same experiences: watching Sesame Street, being close to Zora. But as the days pass and parenthood becomes less an act of changing diapers, and more a mechanism for instructing and guiding life; I realize how difficult it is and can be when we’re less able, less apt to control or better yet, understand what is happening internally.

I wasn’t, even though it was momentary, and I couldn’t breathe. How many moments did my mother, when I was a mirror image of my own daughter 28 years ago, how many moments left my mother breathless?

How many still do.

Having a child is tough, being a parent ain’t easy. Loving, at least, is a natural current and I’m so blessed to have these moments to process both, each, inchly.