Messenger

There is an elegance to my child's management of herself. Raw, honest. Predictable, but difficult to understand.

When we get it, it blows our minds. Every tiny thing.

Last night, for instance, before we went to bed, and while I was trying to calm my mind (ha) I cracked the literacy code of some of her words...my heart nearly stopped and it was all I could do not to wake my sleeping partner and explain my genius discovery. This morning I wrote it out for him on paper, and he was impressed.

Mostly, we watch, and we try to extract the why.

In the mornings, after 10-11 hours of sleep, my daughter wakes up in the middle of a conversation. Eyes open, head lifts, words emerge. I know this because we sleep next to her audio/video monitor (one of the most ingenious inventions of all time).

I don't know if she is continuing with a dream, or if the morning ritual is just that logical: awaken, speak, do. She rests on her back and rocks back and forth, her legs in the air, staring up at the ceiling and pondering out loud. So many words...morning exercises of language.

She then sits up in bed and begins to instruct her "friends" (she has many that sleep with her) to wake up and go back to sleep. If they do not obey, she reminds them firmly. She's rather strict. We have no idea where she gets this.

Then, she stands and begins to toss everything in her crib out onto the floor. Whaaaat?

This morning, when we walked in to get her up, everything was out of bed. And there she stood, little peanut, ecstatic to see us, but not quite ready to get out. First, as always, she must tell us what has been going on in her world for the last hour. She must point out all of her friends, point out various objects in her room.

When her diaper is changed and her clothes are on, and she has finished with the many details of her day thus far, we stand her up and put on her shoes and socks. And when that is done, she promptly suggests, "All right. Waffle."

Her uniqueness is not simply a fact. Like, we are all unique. Yes, of course.

But how a child — our child — can mystify us so profoundly is still, and will continue to be, beyond me. She isn't the reminder that comes from the reality check of a good story, or the bit of perspective that one might stumble across in a fleeting moment of meditation, or even the split seconds of bliss that we feel this time of year because the Spirit is so plugged in to something much, much bigger than all of us.

She is the Spirit. I felt it the second I knew she was in my belly. And, now, we see it so clearly in her.

May we see it, too, in ourselves.