These days are filled with fleeting moments, meaning I'm desperately trying to live in these moments while I can, but every once in a while I pause for a second in a state of pure revelation. One of these pauses happened today.
I was deep within thought, contemplating how Emma Vance actually walked with me at the park the other day. I pushed an empty stroller; she insisted on carrying her snack. She stayed obediently by my side; I walked at about 1 mph to accommodate her. It was perhaps the most joyful I've seen her lately, healthy and awash in new freedom. I was contemplating what her ability to walk with me meant on a deeper level: the scary rate at which she's becoming an independent child, the excitement of having a semi-autonomous child who doesn't need me for every little thing, the implications for next spring when I'll be pushing a newborn while E.V. walks at my side...sigh. And then I snapped back to reality.
In the midst of my daydreaming, I had removed E.V. from her high chair and was finishing her rejected lunch (chicken and veggie rice). And when I say "finishing," I mean literally standing in front of her empty high chair, scooping up cold rice with a miniature spoon from a Cookie Monster bowl. (Motherhood...) I had snapped back to reality because apparently although E.V. wasn't interested in her lunch, she sure as heck didn't want anyone else to have it and was pushing me away from the highchair as if I was stealing her last morsel of food.
It was in this somewhat confusing, post-daydream moment that I realized that perhaps as my toddler evolves into a responsible, independent member of society, I'm conversely devolving into a kid who rarely ever has a grown-up meal anymore? Is this possible? :)
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