My Sunshine

October 13, 2012 at 6:48 am | Posted in Lollipop | 14 Comments
Tags: Birthday, Children, Daughters, Girls, Growing Up, Motherhood, Parenting, Perspectives, Relationships

I have a drawing on my dresser. Magenta and violet flowers — humongous and vibrant, the kind I grow only in my dreams — turn their petaled faces toward the azure sky. The canary-yellow sun smiles down on the pastoral scene. He is wearing sunglasses.

Lollipop made it for me.

With her purple-and-candy-corn Halloween pencil, she wrote, “I love you, Mommy. Love, Lollipop” except it really looks like this: I! LOVE! YOU! MOMMY! LOVE! LOLLIPOP! because she also loves exclamation marks.

 

She is 6 today. (She! is! 6!)

Every day is a reminder that she is exactly like me — creative, a rule-follower, a lover of broccoli and bulletin boards. And she is nothing like me — assertive, sequin-wearing, a lollipop-and-licorice girl to the sweet, sticky core.

She keeps an apron on the towel hook in the kitchen, a daily visual reminder to me that she wants to help with dinner. Measuring, pouring, mixing, these are her favorites.

She asks questions like “What is infinity plus pi?” and “Are okapis omnivores or herbivores?” and “When are you going to wash my socks with the purple ghosts on them?”

Give her some paper, pipe cleaners, tinfoil, and yarn and she will whip up a cat mobile or a bunny cave or a pot of rainbow soup.

She is our family’s goodwill ambassador, making friends with fellow restaurant patrons, post-office customers, and the lady in the stall next to us.

She takes her cheeseburger plain, her hot dog with ketchup, and her orange juice with ice.

She wears dresses — pink, purple, plaid, velvet, ruffles, buttons, bows, tulle, jewels, flowers, butterflies, Scottie dogs, you name it — 365 days a year. And twice on Sundays. And Tuesdays. And sometimes Fridays.

She corrals her brothers into tutus. She demands that they play school or pet store or hair salon with her. She is their fairy-winged handler, and they adoringly offer her tributes of marshmallows and pink chalk-nubs.

She is exactly who she is. I feel as though I’ve known her forever — and that I’ll never fully know her.

Like the dresses lined up in her closet, she is layer upon layer of goodness and grace, sweetness and smarts, keenness and kindness.

She is my! life’s! sparkliest! sequin!

Do you marvel at who your children are and are becoming? At how they are so alike — and so different — from you? At how they possibly got to be 6 already??

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