Not a day goes by that I do not worry that I have not done a good job in the mommy department. Good enough I always think to myself as I wonder who brushed Coopers teeth last? Was it Sadie that had a bath yesterday or was it the other way around? My good friends say that I am too hard on myself, that I short change the work that I do. But I am sceptical that they just love the "mommy" that they see, not the "mommy" that struggles with structure and discipline and well, with most everything else.
Try not to judge me when I tell you that I am not a "natural" mother . By this I mean that I am not a "nurse," a "cook" or even a "sympathizer." I am a "fend for yourself" and "get your butt of the floor" kind of person who expects a lot, probably too much from my family. Sadly, I expect that much from myself as well.
Bring on my oldest little love, Sadie Bug. A highly explosive, little ball of strong-willed, smart as a whip, energy that swirls and skips and mostly flips her way around our house. A constant work in progress, I would say. She wants me to have five baby's and is mad at me that we only gave her Cooper. I tell her that I can not wait to be the grandmother to her many grandbabys, but that we are a complete family and we leave it at that. She mothers everyone else's baby's as if they were her own.
On the morning of our church's recent epiphany pageant, Sadie (an angel) ran exhuberantly through the house declaring that "we were going to be late for HER pageant." No recognition of a little baby named Jesus, nope this was her party. Later as all of the angels were dressed and lined up in the hallway, it was brought to my attention that Mary did not have angel wings and was refusing to leave the dressing room. After realizing that the Virgin Mary was were she was supposed be, I went down to the choir room to discover a very tiny little girl huddled in the corner, crying. Her name was Mary and as her warm, wet, salty tears hit my shoulder, she sobbed that she couldn't be an angel without wings. There were no more wings in the dressing room, they had all been handed out. As I carried her upstairs, I knew that we were going to ask Sadie for her wings and I knew that she would happily give them to this sweet little girl. I knew that my little one was so full of self-confidence that she didn't care what she wore and I was right. I had barely explained Mary's tears when Sadie reached behind her costume and produced her own wings.
That day Sadie went onstage with only a halo. She was gracious and kind and I cried for two days with joy. She is a wonderful, sweet, kind and occasionally an extremely feisty little girl, who is one day going to take this crazy world by the horns and do something really great. All our little one's are great, we just have to take a moment to see it sometimes and then tell them that they are great and then they will be.
Cheers,
Tay
