New Years always invites us to consider what we can become this year that we were not previously.  (Thinner, smarter, cured of empty nest syndrome, etc.) So, having quarantined myself at home today with a head cold, I decided to make good on a long promised threat to turn my college age daughter Ari’s room into an office.  My younger daughter,  who will also move into a college dorm next year, is responding by playing her music extra loud as if to remind me, “I’m still here MOM!!!....”

  
     Although the little girls I had yesterday are now young women, rarely a day passes when I don’t recall a precious moment of their past. A particularly sweet memory comes to me now.  Several years ago they were performing in the Christmas Pageant at our small church in Rhode Island.  Ari, then age seven, played Mary.  Alexa, age three, was an angel.  As I attached large sparkly wings to the back of Alexa's white dress she asked, with a quivering chin and water filled eyes,  “Mommy, am, am, am I going to fly?”  “No sweetheart”, I lovingly hugged and reassured her, “these are just pretend wings, you are a little girl and you are just playing that you are an angel tonight.”  
     An hour later Alexa had completed her part in the play and, noticeably relieved that what I told her was indeed true, she joined her daddy and I in the pews to watch the rest of the performance.  Just then, Ari (nine months pregnant - compliments of a down pillow) walked down the aisle behind her eight year old husband Joseph who was begging fellow parishioners for a room.  As instructed, everyone responded to the young boy's pleading with a simple "no." 
     Alexa, greatly distressed at their lack of hospitality, (and still wearing her large silver wings) jumped up to stand on the pew and boomed out in a voice all could hear clearly, “There’s room over here Sissy!."
     And so today, after hollering at Alexa to turn down her music, I hug and remind her of this as well.  Regardless their age, or how many times I paint or refurnish their old rooms, there is and always will be, room over here, for both of them.  Mama Marlaine Parenting 2.0  www.lifeskillsreportcard.com
    

 


Comments

Kim Albuerne
01/21/2009 12:30

Loved this story. Although my children are younger and not ready to 'leave the nest' just yet, I am reminded that the day will come. It is good to live in the moment when you can, remember the past when it is helpful and look toward the future eagerly!

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