My children show me daily why God allowed me to be a mom. Some days, they show me through grief, and growth and trial. But sometimes, it is just the sweetest conversation that takes my heart to a melted state, where there is just no scooping it back together again. For a little while, at least.
When we ask our little Miss to take a bath, she looks at us like we are the crazy ones for making her do something SHE JUST DID YESTERDAY! Yes, baby girl.. we need to bathe everyday. She is too busy being a 10 year old to want to stop and be still and take deep breaths and cleanse. So for now, it’s a daily conversation. Please go take a bath or shower. Do I have to? Yes. Eye roll. Shuffle shuffle. Ok.
Every night.
Tonight, I was cooking dinner, and she was bathing while the boys were at football practice. We enjoy watching re-runs of the Cosby Show as a family, so I was trying to bribe her to get the bath done before they get home. It worked.
She sometimes will ask me to come in and chat with her while she is soaking in the warm sudsy water. I often don’t, and not for some very noble reason.. simply because I don’t want to sit in a steamy bathroom on a covered toilet that may or may not be clean. Shame on me.. there will be a day when she is no longer living in this house, and I will long for the innocence of her asking to spend time with me in that way. I could cry just thinking about it.
NO ONE TELLS YOU THIS. That your heart will be in a constant state of emotion over the children God gives you. It brings me great joy, but it also can take me to my knees in a single painful heartbeat.
So, tonight, I put the sauce on simmer, for my 10 year old is more important than babysitting the dang sauce, and I went to sit in the bathroom to talk with her. The toilet was clean. Praise the Lord.
She had a question for me. She wanted to know what her wedding day would be like. I smiled and told her how excited she would be, and how beautiful she would look, and how she might be a little nervous too. She sat and pondered these things in her heart.
Then she asked if I would do her hair for her wedding day. My heart stopped for a second, because I knew that I could have missed it. I could have missed the opportunity to pour a little love into my baby girl.
Dinner can burn for all I care.
We chatted some more about the day, and what her husband might look like, and what my hair looked like on my wedding day, and how we would most likely hire Ms. Lynzy to do her hair. 😉
And then she closed with.. Will I have to take a bath on my wedding day?
Good golly, child! Yes.
I have no words.
