*

big much and tiny bit she'll now say.

our new inside joke. how much i love my maddy.

the first time she said "tiiiiny bit" narrowing a gap between her thumb and finger until they almost touched, i gasped in laughter.

one very bad valentine's vern gave me a bear. it is white with a red shirt reading, "i love you this much!" his paws are clasped tightly together, held there by magnets in each. vern found it in the kmart check-out lane.

i love you thiiiiis much.

our old inside joke. how much my vern loves me. always announced as he squints with one eye through a tiny opening between his thumb and first finger.

me, too

maddy's first words were 'baby' and 'abby'. her first sentences were in fact her name said over and over and over again in varied inflection. eager for lunch, arguing with her brothers, cuddling. she was only ever saying her name on unending replay but what we heard was "feed me first!" and "caleb. back. off." and "i love you so much."

her first sentence containing two distinct and separate words was 'thank you'. she said it with such deep, genuine emotion that it would knock me back in wonder for how gracious a thank you could be. as if i'd never really heard a 'thank you' before. standing naked beside the toilet. she would throw her arms around me with such unrestrained joy that i had helped her pull down her panties to go pee. "oh, thank you, mommy!" taking the crust off her bread. finding her shoes.

when we told her "i love you, maddy" she would say in a soft demure chime "thank you."

it is the sweetest response i've ever heard to those three little words.

i taught her then how much i loved her. in maddy's language, "big much".

and then may came and one day i said, "i love you, maddy."

and she said, "no you not wuz me. i peed in my's pants. i hit nincoln. i not eat mines carrots. you not wuz me."

i could translate it to proper english, but then it wouldn't sound like maddy. she has the hardest time saying 'love'. it comes out 'wuz'. and since then i have been given at least three reasons i don't really love my baby girl each time i tell her i do.

i remind her i always love her, no matter what. and how much do i love her? from that very first day in may she has now said, pinching her thumb and first finger together, "tiiiiny bit."*

sometimes i ache for her innocent and free toddlerdom so quickly slipping away.

sometimes i get cold sweats fearing what is in store for us when she hits her tweens and discovers fully the great power of manipulation.

sometimes i wonder how much i sound like maddy in my prayer and response to His unconditional love.

i'm not really deserving Your love. i was an arrogant, crappy, nasty mom today. i was lazy. i totally neglected my husband. and my mom.

memememememememe.

amen.

sometimes i practice feeling a thank you, Lord, as much as my two year old daughter does.

i write

we spent weeks researching laptops last summer before investing in an hp hdx 16. the first time we turned her on, she froze. within three months, the 't' button had broken off.

i finally let her go to be fixed and in the month it took hp to repair and send her back, i lamented not going apple. though no one chided me for that. not that specifically. apparently every(non-mac)else has a dell and was shocked vern and i never got that memo. every(non-mac)else exclaiming, "what?! you didn't get a dell?!" totalling at least six people within our close network of family and friends and three of their entire offices.

plus one to each tally if you include vern and vern's office. vern who just brought home his own dell laptop from work. vern who sat in agreement with every(dell)else about how great dells are, and the speed of their service center. heck. most of them paid a little extra to have dell come to the house and the great value in that...

and let me repeat now how 'we' researched laptops for weeks.

a few days into our internet black-out, the bedroom's digital converter box blew and our living room tuner lost nearly every signal available.

i did not panic having lost the french open finals and call mediacom. no. i read. and read. and remembered how much i miss reading when not distracted by hot men on clay, yahoo news and facebook.

but more than that, i missed writing.

loading the dishwasher, folding clothes, mopping the floor, trying to forget the tire of doing push-ups and really wishing that portion of jillian's shred was over with already as it's my least favorite bit of the workout... during these mundane activities so many random things i want to tell the kids when they aren't kids anymore spring to mind. about me. about what i don't know. about what i do. about them.

and this is where i write it.

on a blog kept public - resisting the urge to become by invitation only - because if i know anyone, at anytime, can peer inside... i don't know. i guess i feel what i say to my three carries more weight if i'm not afraid of someone else hearing me say it.