It hasn’t been an easy summer for my oldest and I.
Somewhere between the relative structure of the school year and the “hazy/lazy days of summer”, Belly and I have started to clash more and more. At only seven-and-a-half, she can sure act like a hormonal 15 year old, complete with eye-rolling groans, hand-on-hip glare and sassy attitude. It is all I can do to not shout: “you watch your step, missy, or you can go live with that no-good boyfriend of yours!”
Oh, wait, she’s only seven.
Today, we went to the beach with some friends. It was a perfect beach day: clear blue water shining under a bright sky, rolling waves crashing to shore and rushing up the sand, and a constant wind coming up off the water. D screamed every time the waves rushed for his feet as he scrambled for dry sand. Jilly sat and dug in the sand, covering herself with it before running toward the water to clean off.
Belly, my oldest, stayed with the waves.
At one point, we were not far apart but she was inching in deeper and deeper. The water rose to her chest before I warned her not to go too deep because she was still learning to swim and the undertow was strong and wah, wah, wah, wah (cue Peanuts’ parent voice).
She gave me that, “Oh MOTHER!” look and kept going until a wave broke over her head and knocked her off her feet. She came up sputtering, looked quickly for me and, seeing my advancing hand outstretched to her, happily grabbed it and let me pull her close. For a few minutes, she was tangled up in my arms as we bobbed in the surf. I felt her legs, the ones that used to dangle just a few inches off my hip, wrapped completely around my waist. Her arms, the ones that once could barely reach around me neck, hung down over my shoulders.
She is no longer a baby, but she needs me; that I know. And, although I know the struggles we have are not gone by a long shot, I will try to remember that look on her face after the wave knocked her down and she came up to see my arms there, stretched out and waiting for her.
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