Emotion

My lady babies keep teaching me about what they are capable of when I'm not noticing.

I was talking to my mom and Andy today while I was cooking dinner. Kanah and Grace were in the living room playing and waiting for daddy to get home. I was chopping up some onions and didn't crunch the tips of my fingers in like they show you how to do on the Food Network. Big shocker, I sliced into my thumb. Yelled a word that most Christians would be appalled at me for, and burst into tears. I got off the phone and held my hand under the sink, letting my tears annoint the pain and maybe also some of the stress of the day. Next thing I know I hear a softly mumbling Grace at my side and her arms are stretched up to me. I can't pick her up since I'm still stopping the blood so she just holds onto my legs and is quietly talking in her own language, looking up at me often, wondering about my tears. Finally I am able to pick her up and she holds me. Grace has shown me a couple times before too that she is a sympathetic little one. She seems to know what pain is and is quick to be at my side to make it better for me. And her efforts, in her own fashion, really do minister to me and I feel like she understands me.

Once dada got home, they played for a while and then he put on Cinderella, sitting them in his lap to watch it for the first time. The girls loved it and watched it forever. There was a long scene between the cat and a mouse that was building with anxious excitement as the mouse was almost caught a couple of times. The music grew the emotion around it and at one point in the scene Kanah started crying a little bit and then a little more. At first I just thought it was random but when she started up again right as the scene got heated, Jason and I looked at each other and realized that she was really scared of the cat or maybe scared for the mouse and it brought her to tears. I guess I was just surprised that a one and a half year old is starting to experience fear in watching a scene on television. She was able to recognize that this wasn't happy anymore but it struck a cord in her to cry. Jason said in that moment, "Kanah is our emotional one, isn't she?" She can be so firey. When she does her lion roar, it's crazy ferocious (whereas Grace's sounds like...well, just not like a lion). When Kanah throws a tantrum, it's all over the floor. She grunts when she doesn't like something or when the puzzle pieces won't go in right. And when she smiles it shows all of her teeth back to the molars. She says "hi" with a loud, clear voice and when you're on her good side, you are hugged and snuggled with all of her might. What an emotional little being, both happy and sad.

After Cinderella and then dinner, Jason took the girls up for a bath. I cleaned up the kitchen and then took a few "me" minutes. I could hear them up there but my brain soon was in its own world as I read blogs and wrote emails. Finally I heard a "MAMA!" from Jason and followed by a long series of "MAMA!" shouts from the girls. When they get done w/ their baths Jason has them start yelling for me so I can help with bedtime. I smiled from my chair in the living room. I just love being called mama. I love that some little dittles are acquainted with me in such an intimate way to call me that and to need me to come to them. I just treasured up the little shouts coming down to my ears. I got up to the bathroom where the little voices were still fixated on that one word and as I made eyes with Kanah she yelled with both a fury and a huge grin, "MAAAAMAAA!" and I thought my ears would burst.

These little girls have such determination and emotion inside of them when they set their hearts on something. And I enjoy it when their hearts are set on me.