{Miss Maylin} Suddenly

I feel I'm a pretty positive person in general, but for some reason my writing tends to lean toward the melancholy. I don't know why this is, but for some reason I do my best writing when my mood is less than sunny. I tend to write about the hard things. And often. It's just easier for me than writing about the great things. 

But!

I don't want to look  back on my blog and read about only the hard, difficult, less than perfect times in my life, in motherhood. {I'm sure you don't either!} I want there to be some sunshiny posts smattered along the way, too. 

Because it is. My life is super sunny. A "charmed life," as one of my dear friends once labeled it. I'm reminded of that more and more often as news gets more and more grim. I am blessed. I am fortunate. I have so, so much to be thankful for.

And one of those reasons {and a very BIG one at that!} is sitting right there in that rocking chair on our front porch. 

I love her. It will be forever astonishing to me how quickly children develop. On one day, she's not doing something, is completely disinterested in it. The next day, the very next day, she will have mastered it. Not thanks to any help I've given her along the way. She just does it.

Like sitting in this rocking chair, for instance. We play outside on this front porch a lot. Mainly because our back yard is carpeted with pine needles and dog poop, and who wants to play in that? Um, not me. And our front yard is just more open and sunny and clean. I'll sit in the rocking chair while Maylin plays on the steps or carries the pumpkins around. We'll blow bubbles or balance on stumps or say "ah ah" with flat palmed hands to bugs. A jolly time is had by all.

Not once has Maylin been interested in sitting in the rocking chair. Until one day she was. And in that very moment that she was interested in it, she put her little feet on the bottom rungs and climbed up all by herself. She stretched out her two arms to reach the armrest and started rocking back and forth, back and forth. All by herself. I wasn't even in the vicinity. I was on the other side of the porch. She did it all by herself.

My mama heart was so proud. And so pleased. And so surprised. And in such amazement at the versatility of my daughter's learning. Yes, she's learning to talk, and eat at the table, and that no means no means no. But she's also learning to climb. Learning to make decisions and take risks. Learning to take what she's seen someone else do and do it for herself. 

She's learning to be a human. 

It comes in stops and starts. It comes in pieces and parts. But that learning, it comes. Some days it feels like I've been trying to teach her the same thing for weeks. Other days she's mastered a milestone in a matter of minutes. Suddenly, it's there.

Suddenly, she's sitting in the rocking chair looking at me with that sweetly coy expression.

Suddenly she's saying "Mama" and "please" and "down."

Suddenly she's done with being rocked to sleep and wants to go to bed by herself.

Suddenly.

I'm learning to greet "suddenly" as a great friend, to welcome it rather than lament it. And surprisingly, suddenly, that's an okay thing with me.