Last night, I was trying to get Helen to color a gift bag in which I was planning to put the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day gift for my parents. So I said, “Helen, can you color this bag so we can give it to Grama and Papacake?”
She selected a handful of crayons — her favorite things in the universe — and put them in the bag to give to her grandparents.
My heart melted then and there, as I explained to her that I wasn’t asking her to give away her crayons, just to color the bag.
Yesterday was a good Mommy Day for me. Helen and I played during Alice’s morning nap, and then we went for Helen’s three-year portraits, then to McDonald’s for lunch, then to the pool, then a LONG nap for both girls, then Helen and I went back to the pool and left Alice to play with Daddy, then dinner, then MORE playing, then bedtime. She slept a little longer this morning than she usually does.
As soon as Alice wakes up from her morning nap, we’re all going to the pool again. It’s a spectacular day.
I love those moments. Mine came when we had our Halloween party in choir last year.. I had to run a little girl to the bathroom for an icing emergency (“My mother will hate me if I get an orange stain on my costume!!”), and when I got back, all the 4 and 5 year old babies were sitting quietly, eating their cupcakes. One of my favorites, Ryan, came and tugged on my pant leg and asked me to eat his cupcake. “You don’t like it?” I asked.
“I didn’t try it,” he said, blushing. “But you didn’t get one.”
Orange and black cupcakes always remind me what innocence is.