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Coming on the heels of planning a double-birthday party and preparing for a 3,000 mile road trip with 3 kids, wrapping up a homeschool year and prepping for a month away from work — organization, purging, simplifying has been at the top of my list.
But in all of my hustle and bustle and checking off tasks, I find myself stopping and wondering, seeing both behind and ahead.
I look at my now 6-year old, her legs growing longer and her ideas growing deeper, and I wonder where the past 6 years have gone, wonder if I’ve missed them in the sleepless nights of pregnancy and nursing and toddlers crawling into my bed. Was I too preoccupied to capture the wonder of everyday living?
Of course it’s easy to look back and see how I could have done better – hindsight is 20/20. In the moment – the everyday living – wonder feels lost in days that feel like a tooth and nail cat fight, just clawing to get through: the busyness, the boredom, the one more game of Candy Land or if I have to tell you one more time. Some days the training feels endless and I wonder if I’ve come to the end of myself.
But now she’s 6 and another baby coming and I don’t want anything to keep me from savoring the days I’m given with her. Because they feel shorter and already she needs me less, and one day soon she’ll be driving off with her friends, her electric smile spread wide across her beautiful face.
I want to love her well today.
How do I become so busy, so preoccupied, so distracted from her? Why do I major on the minors and hold her to a standard no 6-year old could attain? What causes me to so often veer away from love and camp out with expectation?
Organizing my house has been useful, but purging my heart is paramount. Because I don’t want to miss these days, these opportunities, this girl.
Maybe that means not writing, not achieving, not pursuing so many other things. Or maybe it’s fewer activities and plans and playdates in the book. Because maybe loving her well today means pursuing her now, chasing the heart of my daughter and making more space for her to be her and us to grow.
Maybe the simplifying should be more than the toys and the clothes and the physical space of our home – maybe I need simplicity of heart and thought and cluttered schedule — more margin to allow my heart to be more full, more for her.
Less.
Fewer.
Smaller.
More.
Original photo of little girl: Mike Baird, Flickr Creative Commons, text all mine.
This was sweet.
Best to you as you get ready for baby!
~Kelley
Thanks, Kelley!!
My goodness… So many tears. You’ve captured exactly what I’ve been feeling. I feel like you opened up my heart and wrote everything that spewed out.
My husband and I have three as well, 1 girl (age 5) and 2 boys (ages 3 and 1) and we’re thinking of adding another. Lately, I’ve been examining my relationship with my daughter. It started straining when we had our second child, a boy who is the apple to my eye. I feel like it was more natural for me to love him (and then his brother) unconditionally because they were boys. My daughter is so much like me and I find it work to maintain a good loving relationship with her. I was wondering why that is and I thought it had to be my own expectations of her, just like you said. I usually feel guilty because our relationship takes work on my behalf and I feel like no one else goes through those feelings, and that if they knew I did, I would be judged.
Thank you for this blog post. It has set my heart free. I need to pursue my own daughter as well. She’s going off to school this September and I can already see her asking to borrow the car. Through your words I’ve realized that I need to spend more one on one time with her, she needs it more than the others. We both need it.
Oh Cynthia, I am so blessed by your honesty here! I just want to encourage you to keep being open before the Lord about your feelings and keep praying for your daughter. I have found that there is no greater way for God to knit my heart to someone else than when I am praying earnestly for them. He will guide you to know how to pursue her, too. He made her and loves her and will show you how to win your daughter’s heart.
Many blessings to you! Praying for you and your girl!!
xoxo e