Challenging can be beautiful

There is a parenting book out there with the enlightening title, Your three year old: friend or enemy.

Lately, I am leaning more towards the latter.

To her credit, Madam has been spectacular in the face of so much change. Her father's six week trip to India. Our two weeks at my parents' house. And now our seven weeks here. In the meantime, her schedule has warped to the point where it's no longer recognizable.

Of course, we miss the easy rhythm of our days at home. Our familiar haunts, now grown grassy after endless winter. Lakes that whisper with gentle airy laps, relishing fluidity after a hard freeze.

But...here we are.

Unfortunately, all of this change comes on the cusp of Madam's own changes—from two to three, from relative wordlessness to burbling sentences. From loving child into, well, into a three year old.

It's been challenging, to be sure. And yet, the other truth is that she's never been so lovely, so winsome, so brilliant and clever. Looking at her, I feel dizzy and particled with happiness. Until she starts screaming again, of course.

I'll be honest, I haven't been able to learn much from Madam in the last few months. My own depression was like a dense fog, and I was so tired from the efforts of moving from the living room to the bedroom to the kitchen that I was merely existing. Now, I am waking up again, little green shootlets of soul. And the phrase that shot through my mind while watching her today was “Challenging can be beautiful.”

This is something I want to remember.