A strong man blowing delicate bubbles for his young daughters is a beautiful thing.
Round and iridescent, delicate and weightless, bubbles blown from the lips of my strapping husband danced on the light breeze. We’d secured a particularly good bubble-blowing kit as a birthday gift for my youngest, and the results were no less than magic. The temperature outside was perfect, and the relentless Kansas wind had finally decided to take a time-out. Beauty stacked upon beauty until a permanent memory of that evening was etched in my mind. Bubbles and giggles and family and love.
Sometimes, pictures can’t capture the beauty of the moment. And sometimes they can.
But bubbles, much like memories, are fragile. If you try to contain them, they break. If you try to preserve them, they lose their value, no longer free …
Eight hours of cooking, cleaning, decorating, all to be enjoyed and devoured in two hours time. Ground beef, roast chicken, beans, cheese, mushrooms, cilantro, onion, green chile, salsa, sour cream, enchiladas gooey and melty on 20 plates. Three-layer made-from scratch banana cake, caramel dripping down the sides. Laughter. Long conversations. Little girls shrieking and chasing. When all the guests had gone home, the mess (mostly) cleaned up, baths were given, and I tucked my new two-year-old into bed. I felt the exhaustion sink deep into the bone.
She gripped her new Curious George tightly, and in a sweet, small voice said, “I had a great day mommy.” Me too, honey, me too.
Was she worth all this effort? Absolutely.
I’m pretty darn proud of this cake.
I know this little girl
She came into our world
All plump and round and sweet
What a joy to meet
Her eyes are crystal blue
They sparkle bright and true
Her auburn hair it shimmers
In the sunlight how it glimmers
A blessing we’ve been given
A daughter and a sibling
A sweet and silly baby
Growing into a young lady
Her laughter shrieks and giggles
With peek-a-boo and tickles
Her hugs and kisses dear
Are the most tender and sincere
I know this little girl
She came into our world
All plump and round and sweet
What a joy to meet
The magic of this moment couldn’t possibly be captured by camera. Still, I’m glad to have it.
I can still remember the way she looked on my chest. Wet from the womb, her eyes wild and her chin, strong and angular, jutted out at me as if in an immediate assertion of dominance. She’s always been strong. Strong minded, strong willed. So strong, in fact, that she left a large, deep bruise on my left breast after a faulty first latch, such a painful encounter was our first as mother and daughter. “Good luck feeding that barracuda,” the nurse joked. How right she was. I gave up nursing after three weeks. Cracked nipples and scorching thrush meant that each feeding session was excruciating. I’ve always felt guilty about giving up on her, and perhaps I …
You’ll find this shortly inside the entrance at the Bartlett Arboretum. Beautiful.
I looked at the clock on the stove in the kitchen. 3:05. I was unshowered, and still in my pj’s, taking a day’s rest to nurse my sinus headache and resulting malaise. While a small part of me wanted to stay in the comfort of my home and my leopard pajama bottoms, a bigger part of me, much bigger, spurred me into action. I had to get to the Arb. Year after year, I vow to check out Art at the Arb, a weekend of music and arts at the Bartlett Arboretum, just a short drive from my house. But something comes up every time. This year, though, my only excuse for not attending was…well..the whole needing to shower …
Yes. Yes, I have felt this way before. (image from anxiety.net
Oh. My. God. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!
My hands were shaking and my heart bulging from every artery when I saw what was on the screen. A picture of me. Well, half of me. From the waist down. Pants around my ankles. Sitting on the toilet. On Instagram.
Did it post? Did it post? I didn’t know. My phone was frozen. I clicked, nothing would work. I was unable to delete, rewind, go back. My life was ruined. Ruined.
“I take your picture Mommy! Yaaaaay! I did it! Yaaaay! You like it?” My round-faced toddler hovered at my feet, right near where my pants were not yet pulled up. “I take your picture Mommy! I did it! See?”
I had to move to Mexico. I have to delete the Internet. All …