Ask any parent, and they will tell you- teething = fussiness. Some babies have less trouble with it than others. Mine doesn’t. My almost-4-month-old is teething. Some days are better than others. On her not-so-good days, she wants nothing more than to just sit and rock with me while we listen to music. (The music is important)
So we sit there, rocking… for an hour… while the rest of the house sits there… for an hour. I have chores to do, meals to cook. My articles won’t write themselves.
And yet I sit there. Some days, by the time Daniel gets home from work, I am very tired, worn out from a day of nothing. Amazing how unproductive days can make you feel so tired, isn’t it?
Sometimes it does drag on me. My little girl is a Daddy’s girl- except when it comes to moments like these. Times like these, all she wants is Mommy. She wants to sit in my arms, lying her head in my shoulder, where she’ll rock and listen to the random songs I find on Youtube.
It drives me ragged. I don’t remember the last time I had a girls’ day.
And she still wants me.
Despite all my shortcomings, she wants me.
Despite my frustrations and impatience, she wants me.
Despite the messy house, the chores yet undone- she wants me.
It doesn’t matter to her that the house isn’t clean enough or that things aren’t organized as they should be. It doesn’t matter to her that I don’t have all the right snacks ready to grab from the kitchen or that the bed (both hers and mine) is a colorful mess or that my pillows remain on the ground where they were tossed last night.
It doesn’t matter. All that matters to her is that Mama is there to rock her and has nothing better to do than to sing to her. She wants me… just me, just as I am. It’s all she wants.
And so we sit on the couch, mismatching pillows scattered around us for comfort. I balance my computer on the arm of the couch and keep ten Youtube tabs open in order to have the next song loaded and ready when the last one is done. And I sing to her, in my slightly off-key sort of voice- which she still doesn’t care about. I go through every song I know, breathlessly hoping I don’t run out before she’s happy again. Sometimes I play the same song twice.
Because it matters to her.
Little Stepping Stones 