the way she looked at me

Yesterday was a good day--not for any particular reason--it just was. We played and laughed hard. While Elle was taking her morning nap, I took the girls outside to the curb and turned on our borrowed bubble machine. At first, I just sat on the curb and watched my girls run circles trying to catch every last bubble, but after a minute or so, I decided to get up and play with them. We chased bubbles all over the crowded parking lot.

Somehow chasing bubbles turned morphed into waltzing to my humming of the Disney princess songs. We danced and twirled and bowed until the bubble machine ran out of juice. Somewhere during the middle of Ariel's "Part of this world," I looked at Mya and she looked at me with this glow in her eyes as if I was creating real magic just by the sound of my voice. She ran full speed into my arms and hugged me. It was a good hug. A really good hug.

I know motherhood is hard sometimes. I pretty much document all the ins and outs and ups and downs one might encounter on this little blog. I know it must seem so dreary from time to time. Truth is, it can be sometimes. But not always. I was thinking of ways to describe motherhood and rather than always falling back on my go-to word--hard, I decided there had to be a better word. It wasn't until a few days ago when I woke up to V spilling water all over the floor for the third time in an hour that the word "messy" came to mind.

Motherhood is messy. It is a mixture of everything that is good and beautiful combined with everything that is hard and ugly. It is constantly changing with every laugh, every tear, every hug, every tantrum, every dirty dish, every mouth to feed, every lesson to teach, every room to clean, every book to read, every cuddle to give.

Mya starts full-day school next week. I'm a mess about it. I thought I'd be better about the whole thing seeing as I have always said, "Who wouldn't sign their child up for full-day kindergarten if it is available?" But I must admit that losing Mya for so many hours a day has my head spinning. I don't want anyone to take away her sparkle. She is every bit a princess, and I don't want anyone to tell her otherwise. I worry about how her teacher will teach her, and I worry about the new friends she'll meet and I hope she'll be kind to others and that they will be kind to her.

Everyday I tell her, "Mya, do you know how much I love you?" She always replies, "Yes mama, I do." And then I tell her over and over and over again how much I am going to miss her and how much I am going to be thinking of her. And she tells me every single time, "Mama, I will always miss you. Even when I'm grown up going to college and you can't see me all the time. I will always miss you."

To know her the way I know her. And to have her look at me the way she looks at me. It is my slice of heaven.

(I know I've written a lot about Mya lately, but I feel I must document how we are growing up and changing together. There is so much to record about the other girls like the way Genevieve giggles when she wants to tell you something so important or the way Elle is standing for a few seconds at a time and is so proud of yourself, but those moments will wait for one more day.)