The Romantic Genius of Children

From when he would give me clumps of grass like they were treasure.

Children are romantic geniuses. We are swept off our feet with wild declarations of love that burst forth from hearts that aren't big enough to contain what we mean to them. When they fix their clear unblinking eyes to ours, grab our cheeks between their pudgy hands and whisper at volume 28 as only little ones can, “I don't care if you are an old lady you are my favorite face,” the air fills with Ravel's Bolero. A child's poetry, words set to flight that are worthy enough to land at Aphrodite's feet. Instead, it is we who are the blushing recipients of diamonds spilling from cupid's bow mouths.

My three children have wet whispered words of love into my ear that would set any college woman's cheeks ablaze. But it was with my firstborn's pleadings to my mother when she tried to kiss his angel feet that, “No! No! My piggy toe is only for mommy to kiss!” that I knew I had to start a notebook reserved for the purity of the unguarded love my kids had for me.

Over the years, I've quickly scrawled the small daily verbal notes of love from my babies. Grabbing any scrap of paper, any broken piece of crayon around, I'll try to catch word for word the magic before it rises and joins with the stars of the universe. All one and two sentence wonders, but the ones I share here are from the moments that their words crashed beautifully into my heart, shattering it into a million glorious pieces.

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“Do they sell brown balloons, mom? Because I want some that are the color of your eyes.”

“I don't get it. When I put frosting on my graham cracker it doesn't taste like when you put frosting on my graham cracker.”

“Mom? Stay here until I fall asleep because I want to hold your hand and take you with me to my dreams.”

“I wish it could be OK to marry your mom.”

“Most kids at school don't like it when someone says you look like your mom. But I do.”

“I made a wish on the dandelion, mom, that you could be little again and we could be friends.”

“Stay here, and watch this show with me. It's funnier when you're here.”

“Is there a law that says you have to live away from home? How about one that says you can't live next door?”

“I'm going to build a house with a secret side door so you can sneak in and my wife won't know and you can still live with me.”

“You know how you do a thing? And it makes you not want to do other things? That's what it is when you swing me.”

“When we're old together, mom, do you think we'll still like walking on this path?”

 

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Our children and their romantic genius. Shakespeare could learn more than a thing or two about the seduction of love expressed simply and unbridled, with the intense want for someone who is your world for that short, magical time of childhood.

On the rough patchy days that motherhood can bring, when I doubt that I'm the good mother that my children deserve, I look through my notebook of love and I'm reminded just what a wonder of a mother I must be, to have had these love poems written to only me.

 

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Oh, Doctor....Are You Sure You Cut The Cord?

Alexander, on his 1st birthday

I can't even look at this picture today, without my throat getting tight on me. It's a picture of my now oldest, who was one on the day this picture was snapped. He is 15 now.

I had dressed him in his first grown up clothes that day: a navy blue polo shirt and pleated, pressed khaki pants. He looked just like his dad, and his dad was beaming. I was beaming at finally having my baby, at 36 years old.

Looking at my three boys' baby pictures kills me, anyway--I don't know why I do it---torture myself that way, but, I do. Anyway, today...this picture is killing me.

Since the first second I became their mother, I was transformed into their very own "Ripley." I was untouchable, unbeatable and nothing stood in my way when protecting my children.

It became what I lived for, without question, and I rose up to meet my role. When they cried at night, I'd swoop down and lift them and felt as if I were rescuing them from some lonely tower.

They were soothed by only me.

Life continues on this way, with days that trick you into thinking they will never end. You will always be Ripley, you think, armed and ready, to save them from everything.

Then, the day comes, out of nowhere...where the first live superaction heroine they've ever known, is powerless. The day where she can only sit and watch, and is not able to swoop in and pick them up out of their crying crib.

I watch, feeling a golfball in my throat, while my 15 year old firstborn apple of my eye, struggles with a life lesson.*

I can barely stand it.

The Umbilical Cord

Oh, Doctor, are you sure....
     the day he was born and you cut the cord-
     that cord that connects child to mother-
did you make it a clean cut? complete?

Because sometimes I wonder
    when the sound of his cry would cause
     the strange pain, prickly pins,
     "letting down" the milk to meet his need.
     And when, as he advanced to solids and fed with a spoon
     my mouth popped open
     with every attempt to spoon food into his;
     my tongue licked the corners of my mouth
     when the baby food spilled out on his face.


If the cord was cleanly cut, complete
     why the sinking sick stomach in me
     at the sight of his blood after a fall?
     Why is my mouth dry
     when he is the one on stage to say the lines?
     Why are my palms sweating
     when he is the pitcher on the mound?
    *Why does my heart ache 
      when his is broken?

Doctor, could you check?
I think the cord is still intact.

~Jana Vick


PostScript: a HUGE thank you to Shell @Things I Can't Say, for writing the perfect post for me to find today. Thank you, Shell. I needed to read just the words you had for me at your site today. Thank you.

This? More Than I Could Have Imagined

For others, there was greatness

Found and shown by their works of art

Hallowed high in chapels

And heard in melodies that flowed from music charts

But for me, what will others see 

To show that I am no less?

It is you

For you, my darling children,


are the masterpiece I'll leave,


The greatness that I longed  for, 


at last, I did, achieve.

                              ~author unknown

A Bit Dramatic, Yes, But You Get the Point

There was a young man loved a maid
Who taunted him,"Are you afraid,"
She asked, "to bring to me today
Your mother's heart upon a tray?"

He went and slew his mother dead
Tore from her breast her heart so red
Then towards his lady-love he raced
But tripped and fell in all his haste.

As the heart rolled on the ground
It gave forth a plaintive sound.
And it spoke, in accents mild:
"Did you hurt yourself, my child?"

Jean Richepin


A most wonderful Mother's Day to you all!!!!