Raising good little mommies

So yesterday was a day where my daughter and I called out to the world to let them know they`d have to go on without us.  We were taking a sick day.

We stayed in bed virtually the whole day.  With a small break for some much needed groceries, we stayed in bed, and watched movies and read books and just generally snuggled and slept.

When Maggie awoke from her nap and came in, I was just starting to drift off...so no surprise that I didn`t get all the rest I needed, but when she crawled up on the bed and saw that I was not moving as quick and alert as I usually am, she snuggled in quietly and cradled my head with her whole body.  She was as quiet as a mouse and barely stirred for almost an hour which (if you know toddlers) is unheard of.  In fact, anyone would wonder if there was some cruel and unusual punishment afoot.

That`s when I had an epiphany.  She`s growing up so quickly that it`s almost always that realizations of our children`s development come to us in big brief glimpses.  They quickly flash through our minds and set us on our haunches where they leave us to ponder them.

My daughter is learning how to be a good mother...and she`s learning this from me.

So for the last 24 hours or so, I`ve felt like a great success.  When I had my child my life long goals changed.  In the blink of an eye, my sole purpose in living became moulding this new life into a caring, kind, and capable woman who would take on the world, turn it on it`s end, shake it out and make something remarkable from it`s pieces.  I have just seen precisely how capable of that she already is.

When, as a parent, you spend most of your days worried about what a failure you are, and how badly you may be doing at not poisoning their little minds and leaving them with mental footprints they`ll need therapy to cope with later on in life, a success like this is huge!  Ginormous even!  It`s enough even to get you through another 24 hours without medication.  These small successes are the foundation for good mental health.  These types of successes are the ones where if you`re actually able to recognize them, can carry you through just one more difficult moment.  These are the successes that are often the hardest to trust, but the most important ones to put your faith in.  They most certainly should carry more weight than those ugly dark moments that cause us to doubt ourselves.  If you were to award points, you would award at least 10 points to such a remarkable success.

And then she asked about my boobies, and compared them to her own itty bitty 2 year old chest, and life returned to normal quicker than it gave me a view to the surreal.  BUT, in all this you can see, she knows how to comfort and console and repair and build up.  She knows how to nurture, and what helps in that process..  Boobies are the best comfort in the world - as any man will tell you.  And she already has that instinct.  My baby is an awesome caregiver.  My baby just changed my world...again.