Something happened today that made me more aware of what my life is and who I want to be. I've experienced this moment one other time previous to today but never took the time to lay it all out in words.
My two-and-a-half year old wanted eggs for dinner. Nothing out of the ordinary, and it would probably be a pretty quick and easy meal to make if she didn't insist on pulling up a chair, cracking the eggs herself, and "stir, stir, stir!". All of that being said, it still takes all of eight minutes. So she does exactly what I expected and demands to help cook her little supper. We crack, we stir, we salt, we pepper, and we're done. I make her a routine chocolate milk to help wash it down and we set out for the living room. (Yes, sometimes we eat in the living room....remember, I'm working on my mom skills everyday..don't judge). I come back to the kitchen to start assembling my dinner when I hear her ask for a fork instead of a spoon. As I start to reply that yes, I would bring her a purple fork instead of the yellow spoon, I hear small running feet, a little gasp and a big clank.
It was that moment that my brain was telling my mouth to huff. To sigh a sigh of disapproval. Telling my hands to rub my frustrated head. After all, I spent 8 minutes helping her cook these eggs. But before I could say anything, I saw my daughter kneeling on the floor. It was an instant breakdown. Heartbroken. Sobbing for her bits of the perfectly cooked-by-her egg that was now all over the floor. It hit me that in her little almost three-year-old brain, this was possible the worst day of her life. How could I even entertain the thought of making it worse. Don't I mess up? Don't I get second chances? All of the above.
I walked over and calmly explained that mommy wasn't mad and that we had lots more eggs in the fridge and that we could take another whole 8 minutes to make new ones. In her eyes, on her face, in that small second was real love.
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