Stuology

Another Good Feeling Moment

Jul 18th, 2007By: Mellystu Comments 1

Up until 2004, I went through life feeling content and happy just being the mother of puppies.  Even when I was really young, I declared that I wasn’t going to get married because I didn’t need to be married, and I wasn’t going to have kids. I was going to have a puppy farm–a large-acre plot of land where the unwanted puppies could come and live. However, I’m different than a lot of the childless people that I know . I like children. When I was young, I loved being the babysitter. When my siblings had children, I adored being the aunt. In both situations, it was only temporary. I was not their parent. I wasn’t driven to exhaustion by the time I arrived at home at the end of a day’s work, and then had to deal with children. I wasn’t trying to balance the day to day mundaneness of the household. I’d show up, have tons of fun playing or teaching them to do weird things, let them occasionally break those small, non-harmful rules, and then I would go home. The kids thought I was cool. I thought they were cool. But I never wanted any of my own.

Then Mac came along, and he did want them. And he convinced me. I’m still trying to figure out how. I am at times completely exhausted and still have to deal with children and deal with them calmly. I have the day to day mundaneness of the household chores. I don’t get out much anymore. For reasons like tonight, I don’t care.

Putting Ada to bed can be difficult. It takes the right book, the right music or the right toy. Tonight, she started her half-cry/half-whine, and I just patted my hand on her new pillow, and said "lie down on your pillow." She really likes pillows, so she did and smiled. Then she sat up, grabbed a doll from the end of the bed, and lied back down with it by her side. I grabbed her blanket, and covered her and her doll up. I said goodnight and was walking toward the door when I heard her say, "mama." I turned around and said, "yes, Ada." Then she said, "’night." I stopped and just looked at her tiny head and wisps of hair on her big pillow, her big eyes and soft pale skin, her tiny smile. My heart just swelled with love. I wanted to just stare and stare at her so I could burn the moment into my retinas. I said, "goodnight, Ada. Love you." and left the room when I really wanted to drop to my knees and declare her the most beautiful creature ever. And cry. I never had that when I was the babysitter or the aunt. Now I even better understand why parents take so many pictures of their children. They grow up so fast, and even if it took 10,000 pictures, it would be worth that many to capture just one heart-swelling moment forever.

I haven’t written one of my Good Feelings posts in a long time. I was overdue, so I thought I would share a mother-daughter moment that I would normally not even mention.

Lastly, the moral of the story: