Down the Rabbit Hole

Happy Tears

After the third consecutive night of coughing, I carted Jaden to the pediatrician this morning before school. Of course the doctor offered one of two explanations, it is either post-nasal drip or allergies. Both maladies call for little more than over the counter remedies but at least I know her lungs and ears are clear. The diagnosis didn't really surprise me but my daughter's behavior certainly did. Normally my baby girl dreads the doctor. She spends the majority of the time anxiously looking at the door, waiting for him to walk through it and then cowers against me when he does. Not today. Today Jaden calmly stepped up on the scale and stood still while they read off her weight. She followed the nurse into the exam room and climbed up into the chair. She smiled at me when the nurse clipped the oxygen monitor over her finger and only flinched a tiny bit when she took her inner ear temperature. She looked at books with me while we waited for the attending physician and when the small woman rushed in, she treated her to a wide grin. Even the checking of the ears, usually something Jaden fights off with an iron will, went relatively smoothly. Afterward, we walked to the car hand in hand. She polished off her donut (at least the portion covered in frosting) on the way to school. We even squeezed in a few songs before pulling up to her new building.

Maybe it was the fact that she acted so mature during her doctor's visit, or perhaps it was walking into the preschool building and passing all those classrooms filled with older children or maybe it was because I had to ask her for a kiss goodbye before she shrugged out of her coat and took off with her friends...whatever the reason, I found myself bursting into tears as I belted myself back inside my car. My daughter is growing older, faster and with more brilliance that I am prepared for at times. While I am delighted in part, I am also aching with the knowledge that these precious moments are fragile and fleeting and will never come again. I love watching Jaden mature, seeing daily how her skills and her ability to communicate are developing at rocket speed. I am endlessly proud of her. I love her with a ferocity I could have never imagined I was capable of. And yet, watching her growing up before my eyes also brings me a small degree of suffering as I have to say goodbye to more and more of my baby even if I get more and more of my little girl in exchange. It is the best kind of bitter sweetness. Each time I go through her closet, sending the outfits she's outgrown to exile in the attic, I am reminded of how quickly time passes us all by. Every time she stuns me by belting out a song I didn't think she knew, or using a word or phrase I hadn't expect her to learn the meaning of yet, I am reminded that she is on her own journey, one I am only sharing with her. Each time I hear her feet rushing across the landing to climb into our bed or wake up to her beautiful smile, I am reminded of how much of an incredible gift she is and how very lucky we are.

So I cry from time to time, but of course these are happy tears. While I miss the baby girl I once held, there is nothing more precious to me than walking hand in hand with my little girl. Someday I will tell my daughter about all these tears though. I will tell her what it was like, crying into the folds of the tiny tie-dyed dress, remembering how it was my one of my favorite baby outfits and feeling sad knowing it would soon join the walkers and the bouncers and the other infant toys in storage. Someday I will let her know that each step forward for her also wounded my mothering heart in a small but profoundly beautiful way. I will tell her that part of loving someone with your whole being means saying goodbye to part of them over and over again through the years - saying goodbye but being overjoyed by that, time and time again.