When I Hear You Play

These days, you LOVE playing with your miniature people and Barbies. I can hear you in there right now, in your room after school, playing with them, making up dialogue, staging a play of sorts, entering into that Make Believe world that you create so well that I often have to call your name several times to get you to disengage...

But I love listening to you play. I love hearing how creative you are. You're already writing plays of sorts, already knowing who says what and when...You're brilliant. Really. And I'm proud of you.

You're only 4 years old, but it seems you have a wisdom beyond your years, a gift, a talent...You can create and replicate characters of all types--assign to them new abilities, jobs, because you don't have to mimic their presentation.

For example, sometimes, you can make your Veggie Tale characters into characters that they aren't. They become, rather, whatever you need them to become.

When I hear you play, I am inspired. It makes me want to sit and write. It's as if you spark a creative chord in my soul, and I feel like I can write again.

[And here I am, with keyboard in hand...]

When I hear you play, there are moments when I realize that you are using conversations that we have had during the day--you and me, me and dad, you and dad, you and sisters--and that's when it suddenly occurs to me that nothing much is getting past you--and that you are learning MANY, MANY things from us. Good AND Bad.

One day, I heard you in there with your characters, and one was saying to the other that he/she didn't want to go to church:

"I don't want to go to church!"

"You have to."

"But I don't WANT to go."

"It doesn't matter what you want. You're going!"

Those kinds of conversations in your play make me wonder if I'm explaining things enough, reasons, rationale. And I wonder if you're old enough for that. Is it time to expound upon my decisions, time to explain the WHYs and WHY NOTs?

[Sometimes, I really wish there were a manual for this parenting thing.]

When I hear you play, darling, ultimately it gives me great cause to THANK THE LORD for the opportunity to be your Mommy. I LOVE my life since you have entered it. You will NEVER know (until you have a child of your own one day) how much you delight me, inspire me.

I love you, always and forever,
Mommy

"I Love You in My Heart": Your First Official Prayer Meeting

While it's true that you have grown up in and around the church, and that you've attended many prayer meetings in your first four years of life, this was the first time you talked to me about the prayer meeting itself and told me that you prayed--and what you prayed about.

We were in the sanctuary, and when some of the people sitting wanted to go down to the front to pray, you grabbed my hand and told me you wanted to go, too.

Your sisters asked if you wanted to stay seated with them and pray, but you told them you wanted to go pray with your Momma.

So we held hands and walked down to the front pew. I sat down and you knelt, and then you jumped up quickly to get me a tissue.

"Here you go, Momma," you said. I took it and smiled at you. You've been with me many, many times when I've been to the church to pray. You know that I'll probably need one of those.

You knelt down at the first pew, next to me, for a minute or two, and then you asked me if you could go sit with your sisters.

Later, as we were preparing to get things ready to go, I asked you if you prayed.

You said you had.

"What did you pray about?" I asked.

You whispered back at me, "I told Jesus, 'I love you in my heart.'"

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I thought of all the prayers I had sent up during the one-hour prayer meeting, hoping that they were as well-received as I KNOW that one was. And I wondered if I had said as much during my prayers.

"Jesus, I love you in my heart, too." I think, typing this.

Psalm, you are a great blessing to me, darling, and a source of great joy in my life.

I am thankful to God for you, Elizabeth Psalm Yandell.

Love,
Mommy

Little Miss Independent

I know you're growing up, I do. And I know that's the way it goes.

Your baby grows up.

But yesterday, I was met with that reality in a way I just wasn't prepared to accept.

For the first time EVER, you didn't bring your "night nights" to me to put on. When I heard you coming to the table, I turned, expecting to take the jammies you picked out from your closet and help you put them on. I mean, that's how we've done it now for years...

But when I turned around, you had your "night nights" on, and there were no mishaps. No shirt turned backwards, no pants inside out. Your head wasn't stuck in the armhole.

It looked perfect.

You'd done it yourself. With no help from me.

With no help from me...

I felt a pang of regret at that moment, combined with a certain pride that you are growing up, smart and sassy enough to pick out your own clothes and put them on for yourself....

But I couldn't help but think: She doesn't need me to put her "night nights" on anymore.

And, apparently, this is how it goes from here on out. You learn to do things for yourself, make decisions for yourself, and me and my role diminishes until you are out in the world, wholly free and responsible to live your life and make your own decisions.

I am reminded of how little time I have with you in "The Grand Scheme of Things," and it makes me want to hold you, more tightly, just like this, just how we are now, so I don't miss a single second, a single opportunity, of life like this.

I want you to know that I am very proud of you, so proud of the little person you are becoming.

I love you, Little Miss Independent.