This morning, republishing a modestly edited version of an essay from last year. The moment I capture below has had a profound impact on me as a mother. It led me to make a point of being more physically affectionate with my seven year old. It’s not that we didn’t hug and snuggle before, but that I’d somehow forgotten that she still needed the random squeezes and swings and tickles that I unthinkingly felt she’d somehow outgrown. She is so mature (!) for her age, but she still needs it. And I think this emphasis on physical affection has had a profound (good) impact on us, drawing us closer than ever.
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A few nights ago, I was dancing in the kitchen with my son in my arms — his head tilted back in joy, a smile stretching across his face. My daughter found us:
“Now my turn, mama – now my turn!”
I told her she was too big to be carried, but she persisted:
“My turn, can I have a turn?”
My daughter is a newly-minted seven-going-on-seventeen-year-old, and knows how to huff and eye roll and stamp her feet with the best of them, often responding to my husband and I with a sarcastic “…really?”,
and the other day I poked my head out the front door to call her for dinner,
and didn’t recognize her shape in the neighbor’s yard.
She was wearing her new flared leggings (a specific, passionate request) with a braid down her back, and it was the first time I’d misplaced her figure.
In the hospital, bleary the day after she was born, I had panicked to Mr. Magpie after the nurses had taken her out of the room to the nursery so that I could try to close my eyes: “What if I don’t recognize her?” He assured me that all the bassinets were marked, and added:
“Are you kidding? You’d know that cry anywhere, already.”
He was right, of course. I could pick her sound out of a million near-identicals. Her smell, too. The way she runs. Her rippling laugh. The shape of her toes.
But I’d looked across the yard, and not recognized her for a split-second, and I think this mis-sighting blurred my vision for a spell,
Because that night we were dancing in the kitchen, after she pawed at my shirt for a turn, I sat down on the couch and pulled her into my arms and bounced her on my knees and tickled her arms and swung her back and forth in my lap,
and she laughed and laughed,
and I saw her at 1, and 3, and 5,
and as a newborn in a hospital bassinet —
all the versions of her, returned to me, as though a matryoshka doll unlidded —
and I realized that she is still my baby girl, still needing to be tickled and held and swung around in my arms. She is seven. She believes in Santa, and wonders whether her dolls get up to mischief when her back is turned, and lays her head on my shoulder while I read to her at night. Only seven. I can’t let her posturing as an older girl, modeled on the teens who baby sit her, and the fact that my husband and I are often mired in conversations about rule-setting and reinforcements, obscure this truth:
She is little, and she needs love in the big ways, but in the little ways, too.
She needs not only boundaries and homework reminders and “what do you think?” conversations but impromptu back rubs and hand squeezes and fingers-running-through-hair. We say “I love you” ad infinitum in our house — several times a day, at least — but I had forgotten that she can still fit on my lap, and be swayed back and forth, and that she craves these tendernesses, too.
There is a possibly apocryphal haiku attributed to the Japanese poet Basho that runs:
To quiet down
the unsettled heart
of the daughter
A beautiful portrait of motherhood, isn’t? A piece of it, at least — one glinting prism of the stained glass composite: the centricity, the purposefulness, of a mother’s quieting presence. Today I sit here and think:
How many nights did I rock my girl to sleep? How many mornings did I carry her, plastered to my chest, in her carrier? How lucky I am to have her still seeking umbrage in my arms, and how snugly she fits.
Post Scripts.
+We carry all the ages of our children inside.
+Even so, it can be hard to say goodbye to each phase.
+The saltings of motherhood.
Shopping Break.
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+Doen new arrivals are on point and beginning to make me think about spring. I absolutely LOVE this head-to-toe look, from the baby pink cashmere cardi to the white skirt. And of course all the butter yellow is divine!
+But if you only buy one item from the Doen launch, let it be this top! I promise you’ll get a ton of wear out of it. Ultra-soft (like t-shirt soft), easy to tuck with no bunching. It is just as easy to throw on as a t-shirt but more interesting/polished.
+Get Doen vibes for less with this brushed short sleeved knit. In my cart!
+Pretty new wedding guest dresses for the season ahead: this Shoshanna, this HHH (I own it in a different print – super flattering and pretty), this House of Dagmar, and this Cara Cara.
+I love my Ossa phone strap. I’d sort of lost it / forgotten about it but just pulled it out again — lots of cute new options here! This one is spendy but reminds me of Simone Rocha!
+Gorgeous new knit at Sezane.
+Just bought my daughter this set of markers — the packaging alone! She is my little artist and I know she’ll love drawing/coloring with them.
+Love this whipstitch-trim puffer (under $200). Reminds me of my Veronica Beard Leal jacket from a few seasons ago.
+Another good look for less for the B-sides Lasso jeans. I had a bunch of readers write about how much they love this denim brand.
+Target run! This rattan bowl, these waffled dish cloths, these pom bins. (The latter a Pehr look for less.)
+Pretty scalloped plates for displaying Valentine’s Day treats.
+Gorgeous cableknit cardigan.
+OBSESSED with these pearl-adorned heels.
+Chicest puffer jacket ($$$$).
+Pretty eyelet shorts, on sale, for the spring ahead. More early spring finds here.
