Sitting

For the first time in a week, I sat down. I truly sat down.

I leaned my head back, grasped my lukewarm coffee cup in both hands and listened. The sound of pages flipping, the hum of the monitor, and Pandora. I gave myself a short rest. No thoughts of discipline, runny noses, laundry, poopy diapers, or prepping for our next adventure.

I closed my eyes. My daughter, my beloved 2 year old, was quiet. She was mumbling the words to her favorite books, but she was quiet.  No "help me, Mom". No "No, Mama". No tears. No direct defiance. She was doing the activity that had sustained us since the baby was born, but the activity she had neglected in recent weeks.

With her brown bucket to her right, the pile of books on her left kept growing as she paged through each one.

I knew there was snot running down her face, and I knew that pile of books was a battle of wills about to happen, but I sat in the quietness for as long as I could.

Moments later, she emerged, face as I assumed it would be, smelling a little rank, carrying a fly swatter. But I did my best to focus on her eyes. They are beautiful. She is beautiful.

As a friend of mine reminded me recently, "This is all developmentally appropriate. We are helping them to become secure, independent little people."

And on days that I have hard time remembering that, God's grace is sufficient. Even for me.