Over Lunch…

I sighed as I opened the fridge door, thinking about the fact that I needed to eat some lunch.  The little girl in the house had already determined she wanted macaroni and cheese so I pulled one of the microwavable packets from our pantry.  The hum of the microwave sounded in the background as I bent over and perused the inside of my fridge.

I spotted some leftovers and decided I would pick at them a bit and also pulled out a container of vanilla yogurt.  I love yogurt.

K had perched herself on the counter, watching out the kitchen window as a crew of men used their loud, huge saws to take down a pecan tree on the side of our driveway.  THUD!  She started as they dropped a huge branch to the ground.  Goodbye tree.  I will miss your yummy pecans but not your copious amount of leaves.

Once the hot bowl of noodles came out I added a bit of half and half like I usually do and K haphazardly added the “cheese” from the packet I had torn open.  She loves to add the cheese.  Then she stirred the mixture for 3 seconds, only to ask me to do it next, just like every time we make her mac n’ cheese.

I glanced at her and smiled at her cute polka-dotted top and little-girl sized boot cut jeans.  Her precious little toenails, with just a bit of peach polish left on each one, caught my eye too.   I had just painted them for her last week.  Her soft, blond hair hung in her face like it does most of the time.

She sat on the counter talking to me about her bestie at school and how big the tree was(!) and how she wished she could go for a play date at her friend’s house and “mmmm”ing at her bites of cheesy noodles.  I stood there next to her and ate too and we carried on a conversation like two friends might.

In my head I fast forwarded 10 years from now and even 20 and thought about how much I wish for this to still be the case then – us eating our lunch together, talking about the things right outside the window and her telling me freely what she wishes for and her dreams and the things happening in her life…

I tease a lot about what it is like to have a daughter, that it is so much different than parenting her older brothers.  The bossiness, the precociousness, the “girl-ness”.  Never mind that I am one because it does not matter since this is my first experience mothering one and well, it just is different.

Her pointer finger is sharper than her brothers’.  Her hip sticks out much farther when she strikes a sassy pose.  Her closet it more of a challenge to organize.  Her emotions, likes waves, completely out of my control, changing with the tide.

I expect these things will continue and only amplify as she gets older but it is the closeness that I crave and never want to lose.  I want and NEED her to know that she can come to me for anything, talk to me about anything.  No, I am not her “friend” per se but I do want her to know that I am there for her and she can trust me.  There is such a fine line there but I have confidence that we can learn to balance it as mother and daughter.

And I really hope our lunches like this can continue for a long, long time.  It would be nice if her palette would adjust a little and perhaps in the future we can enjoy something a tad more gourmet than Annie’s Mac but if not, that is okay too.  Just spending time, talking with my girl will be enough.