Five Minute Friday: She

She, who is my daughter. With her chocolate brown eyes and deep brown curls. With her crinkle nose smiles and her fake whines. With her cuddles in blankets and games of up and down and peek-a-boo. She, who is my daughter, I'm falling in love with everyday. One minute my eyes will be on the computer screen deciphering an email from a co-worker, and the next minute they are resting on my daughter as she plays face down on the carpet in our “office” underneath her blanket—her first fort.

At first, I didn't feel that overwhelming love for her. At first, she felt like an inconvenience, yes one that was wanted, but an inconvenience just the same. But she, who is my daughter, is teaching me what it means to love unconditionally. She, who is my daughter, loves her mommy, and in return, I want to love her as I am meant to. I know this love cannot be without our Divine Savior because only in Him is perfect love. Daily, I take this journey with my daughter, and with our hands intertwined, we will walk toward a more perfect love for one another.

Me and my little girl.
(April 2013)

Five Minute Friday: Beautiful

Let's just start with one of my favorite subjects in all the world—my beautiful daughter. I look at her and it never ceases to amaze me just how beautiful she is. I love her eyes, her face, her beautiful dimples when she chooses to show them. I love the curls of her hair, and the intrepid way she explores our house. I love the color of her skin and the way it feels the next day after a bath and some lotion. I love her calm ways and her intermittent intensities that mark her learning.

I love the days, weeks, months and hours that have passed in which I have gotten to know her more and more. I love her “Daughter, your heart's not in that” whines and the way she (every time!) throws her sippy cup to the floor from her high chair, as if it was going to land a different way than it did the last one-thousandth time!

I love her. I love her. I love her. But you want to know something about this love? It was not instant. I didn't feel what I feel for her today, when she entered our lives. And the beauty of it? The pure beauty of it? I know I will feel even more love for her tomorrow and the day after that, and yes, the day after that. For that is the beauty of being her mother.

(This was my second take of the FMF prompt, and it was truthfully written in a little over five minutes, which is that italicized part at the end.) 

My daughter's curls.
(Spokane, WA, July 2013)

Five Minute Friday: Imagine

It's a sunny day. The leaves are glistening with the color of light and shadow, gently swaying in the kindest, loveliest breeze a day can bring. And I sit here on my couch. Learning a new laptop. Trying to write something profound, provocative and even pithy. And why not? Writers do that, right?

My baby girl sits at my feet playing with her toys trying her best to mimic the sounds coming from her toy keyboard. Two. One. The green frog says ribbit … ribbit. And my daughter adds her own sounds, her own music. Her own joy.

Then I imagine us twenty years from now. Will the light brought to the leaves be brighter or duller? Will her words carry the soft sounds of joy like today's wind touches the leaves outside? Will her world be one in which she can carry her dreams to her desired destination as I sit back and marvel at the beauty inside her?

I hope so. I hope she touches the Hand of the One Who created her and walks with Him down the streets of her tomorrow.

My living room window.
Spokane, WA (2013)