I got along GREAT with Emma Kelly on Monday. That’s because I didn’t see her all day. Well, I DID see her in the pitch-blackness of 2am, when my alarm woke her up in the next room and she started crying out for me. But after two minutes of comforting her back to sleep, that was it. I was off to work and several hours later, EK was off to school. And because I had scheduled an event for Monday evening, my mother, mercifully, picked EK up from school for me. She took her to swim class…she sat there patiently while EK assembled some Halloween craft…and then she handled up on supper, bath time and bedtime duties for me. And in between supper and bath time, I called to check on how things were going. The first words out of EK’s mouth:  “Mommy, I miss you.” And that was it! All the drama from the birthday party weekend fiasco and all the residual miffedness — miffy-ness? — that I was carrying around was erased by that one sweet little sentence said in that one sweet little voice. Dang, that kid knows how to work me.

And now it’s a brand new day. I’m sitting here watching EK go through her third gymnastics class. For the first time, one of the teachers didn’t have to pull her off of me to get her through the door. But my heart winces repeatedly while I watch her through the big glass window parents are kept behind. I’m afraid my daughter has inherited her mother’s athletic ability…But even though I see her look to older students with a pleading look of “What am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to go??” And even though I’ve seen her lose her balance and fall time and time again…And even though I’ve seen her fold her arms a few times in frustration when she looks around at the other girls in her group and it seems like she’s the only one who can’t do it…she hasn’t stomped off the floor in tears and quit!! I am so proud because that makes her better than me!! And what more can a mother aspire for than to have her kid DO better and BE better than she is!!

I have to keep looking up from my laptop as I type this, though, because I want to make sure EK knows I’m paying attention every time she tries to make eye contact with me. Such a cute little thing as she stands there waving at me with one hand and pulling her leotard out of her butt crack with the other…She may have inherited her athletic inability from me, but thank God she inherited her cute little bubble butt from her daddy.

Don’t get me wrong, though. It may sound like all is well and the crisis has passed, but I’m still going to get on those meds! I’ve already got a call into the doctor and the wheels are in motion for me to find man-made and legally obtained comfort.

XO
Kellie