These are the most precious of all my days

I find myself these days, more often than not, begging Chicky to hurry up. Stop playing with that toy and come over here. Quit stalling and finish your dinner. Please come over here and let me help you with your shirt. You can shake your naked booty another time, just sit on the potty and pee already.

My stress level rises and I raise my voice much more often than I'd like. We're always late for every appointment no matter how early I start the process of leaving the house and that bugs the hell out of me, even though I am a habitual procrastinator myself and am known to be late regularly.

But when there's two willful females living in the same house, something has got to give. And someone's idea of an appropriate timeline is going to be squashed. When one of those willful females is not quite three years old it's the other's timeline that gets heaved out the window, and even if it is met there is no thrill of victory since the not-quite-three year old is not going along willingly. There is no winning, only losing. Losing time, losing patience and losing your cool.

I want so desperately to slow down and enjoy those booty shaking moments more often. I need to learn more patience than I ever thought I could possibly need. But until I do, I'm failing. Or should I say I feel like I'm failing. I know I'm doing the best job I can but there are those days when that's just not enough.

These days are precious. I may have another almost-three year old again but it won't be Chicky. I'll never get these days back and I fear my memories of this time will be filled with Come Here's and Stop That's and Are You Listening To Me's?

The other morning my husband woke me up out of a sound sleep at four in the morning in a panic. He was due at the airport in less than two hours and his car door wouldn't latch. I would have to get up and drive him.

He woke Chicky as I muttered to myself, "I'll wake up and this will be a dream. I'll still be warm in bed. This is just a dream." We all got packed into the car and while Mr. C went to turn off his car he attempted to latch the door one last time. And of course, it worked.

So off to bed went Chicky and I while he drove away.

By 4:30 am she and I were rocking away in the chair in her room. The space was warm and dark and while I stroked her hair to help her calm down enough to go back to sleep she reached up to stroke mine.

She was well on her way to being calm enough to put back into bed, but in the last minutes of that dark morning I chose to continue rocking her warm body instead of rushing back to my cooling bed. It had been months since we had rocked in the stillness of her bedroom. I had forgotten how much I loved that time together.

There will be other times to sleep but few when she'll allow me to cradle her in my arms like the baby she once was. In that moment I had no desire to hurry and rush or admonish her for not paying attention when I was speaking to her. We sat and rocked in silence and every once and a while she would look up and smile at me before laying her head back on my chest. And in that moment there was no stress, only peace.


*With apologies to Duncan Sheik for stealing his lyric for the title of this post.