I get tired easily. I sometimes have to hand Sonora to Daniel in the flash of a second because my arms will give out on me while I am holding her. She doesn't understand that mommies can hurt, or have pain. She got her first glimpse of me in real pain when she accidentally scratched the surface of my eye the other morning. We were all 3 on our bed and she was going back and forth between Daniel and I jumping around and crawling and being a little monkey and I turned into her right as she was flailing her hands about and her index finger landed under my eyelid and her nail ran across my right eye. Too bad it wasn't a day earlier before I had my appointment with the optometrist! I curled up and instantly began crying and holding my eye and she was stunned, just looking at me saying, "Mama, Mama" like 50 times. I couldn't even hold her, I just had to keep blinking in hopes I would be able to see again. Finally, after some time, I picked her up and she held my face in her hands and looked at me and nodded her head with a questioning look in her eyes. I said, "mommy's eye hurts very bad." She did the sign for "thank you" which she often uses as a sign for "I'm sorry." We never thought to teach her the sign for I'm sorry, so she just went to the one sign she knows that shows emotion. I said, "that's okay Sonora, you didn't mean it." And she kissed me on the cheek and then lay her head on my shoulder and gave me a big hug. Wow. To be able to communicate with her beyond, "did you go poo poo?" "don't touch that, HOT!" and, "open ... it's good ... you like this, remember?" To be able to see her show empathy and to see her try and comfort me. I can't even explain what a deep joy I felt. Almost worth going blind in one eye! (It's been 2 days and my eye is still uncontrollably tearing. You can see the scratch clearly.)
Today, she was in the bed with me before church. Daniel had just left to go work on the condo to get it ready for our next renters and I was holding her in my arms. She grabbed my free hand and pulled it towards her. I thought she wanted me to hug her tighter. She shook her head. I pulled my hand away. She grabbed it again and pulled it to her chest. I thought she wanted me to rub her belly. Nope. She pulled my hand close to her again and I looked in her eyes and she was staring right at me trying to say something. I said, "do you want mommy to tickle your back?" She said,"no." Do you want mommy to rub your feet?" She said, "no." She then got her other hand and wriggled away from me enough to be able to grab the hand that was holding her. Now she had both hands and she nodded, looking down at them and said, "unh ... unh ..." I said, "do you want to pray?" And she nodded her head yes and said, "mmm hmmm." I broke into tears right then and there. We pray every day with her. Every morning, every meal and every night. It isn't something new or out of the ordinary, but the fact that this morning she was the instigator, the one who thought, "it's time to pray, now." and reached out and took initiative ... that is the deep thing of being a mom that you wish for. That your child will emulate the BEST parts of you someday, not just your bad habits. The unexpected joy of my daughter asking me to pray ... that was something I thought I wouldn't get until her first big test in grade school!
I am so fortunate. I am so blessed. I love her so much anyway, I didn't think I could love her more, but today, it happened. I broke through to an even deeper appreciation of being a mommy ... more specifically, Sonora's mommy.
