Tuesday, Spaghetti

Monday, string beans.

Two’s Days, I realize, meant something different originally, but today, I am wishing that two could be just one. A One’s-Day.

It occurred to me this evening, as I sat on the couch giving the Babe her bottle, that the mother-child relationship for most of the women in my life is a one-becoming-two sort of thing. They are learning to be two people, two separate people, having been so close for so long and so lovely-ly.

But for me, it has been the opposite. Since she was born, in varying degrees and ways, we have been trying to bring This Little Girl closer. And especially for the past two months, we have tried to become a family, despite the unknown future.

I was talking with Siu Nana (what we are calling the Babe’s first foster mother) and I told her that, for the first few weeks that we had the Babe home with us, it really just felt like I was babysitting. I have 13 nieces and nephews, and Taylor has 10 younger siblings. Caring for other people’s kids has always been part of my life. I’ve changed their diapers, I’ve fed them, put them to sleep, cleaned their poop out of the tub (yeah, eww), and wiped their noses. But I was always telling them, “mommy will be home soon..”

Now, all of a sudden, we have a baby living with us. And even though we are calling ourselves Momma and Dada to her, and taking care of her as only parents can, she is not ours. Not yet.

We are wholly hers. We gave ourselves to her the moment we met her. Yours for the taking, Little Girl. Yours if you want us. 

But she has not been given to us. Not to the point that we can call her our Daughter. She is the Babe, our Sweet Babe, but not our Daughter. Not yet.

Hopefully someday we can be one family.

Grant it, O Lord.



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