Mabel Molanphy

I seem to be run­ning into this phrase more and more late­ly, when it comes to being a par­ent. How the things that seem lenthty in rou­tine or ener­gy seem to sud­den­ly be gone, with­out a moment of warn­ing. It leaves the said-par­ent a lit­tle sad that those moments are gone, with­out a chance to say good-bye. Near­ly three weeks ago, dur­ing a Sacra­ment meet­ing at Church, just Mabel and I were in atten­dance. She was quite fatigued and want­ed me to hold her. It’s not uncom­mon for her to sit on my lap dur­ing church, with a firm grip on her dol­lie and two fin­gers in her mouth. But, this par­tic­u­lar day, she want­ed me to rock her, as I have each night since the day she was born. This con­tin­ued for near­ly the full hour of Sacra­ment meet­ing. Dur­ing her nap, I relayed the sto­ry to David, with the added note, “I nev­er know when she’ll be all done with me rock­ing her.” It was that night. Dur­ing her night-rou­tine, she sud­den­ly declared that she want­ed to sit in her “lit­tle chair” while mama sat in the rock­ing chair (by myself). It’s con­tin­ued each nap and nigh­t­ime rou­tine since. I miss rock­ing that lit­tle girl, but i am so grate­ful I had that last moment.

My dear sweet Mabel has been a great sleep­er for us (not with­out try­ing!) and sleeps so peace­ful­ly and sound­ly in her crib. David has always want­ed to sneak into her room to peek at her, but con­se­quent­ly ends up wak­ing her up some­times. Near­ly a week ago (last Sat­ur­day), David was able to sneak in there and see her, but fotu­nate­ly also video her sweet self just as I know she sleeps (fin­gers in the mouth and a firm clasp on dol­lie). Again, it was the last. That was the last nap she took in her crib. The very next day, she climbed out of her crib, again. As I took pic­tures (and cried) of yet anoth­er loss of rou­tine new growth oppor­tu­ni­ty for Mabel, I was so grate­ful that David had the last video of her sleep­ing so peace­ful­ly in that crib.

I miss my baby girl and it’s hard to see that she is grow­ing up. And yet, I’ve been here every sin­gle moment of it. I am so grate­ful for the sac­ri­fices and deci­sions that David and I have made for me to raise our daugh­ter full-time. These moments are gone, but the mem­o­ries are dear to me. And thank good­ness for iPhones to cap­ture them. 😉

I am for­tu­nate to have a dear friend, Mandy, with whom I share a great deal of sim­i­lar­i­ties in gen­er­al life. For­tu­nate­ly, our daugh­ters are friends as well, so we get to hang out dur­ing the day, as well. At a late-after­noon park date, Mandy shared with me a won­der­ful arti­cle she had read about “hands-free mama” and one moth­er’s quest to put away tech­nol­o­gy and be a part of her chil­dren’s lives. Just, “be present.” http://www.handsfreemama.com/ I clicked over that night and was so touched by the sim­ple “about me” page. It res­onat­ed deep into my soul, and I decid­ed to put this into effort. I sent Mandy an email shar­ing with her the change of my day. (copied/pasted below for my memories).
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• Hav­ing Mabel clap and cheer for you while yelling “Yay, mama, you did it!! You went pee-pee on the pot­ty!” It’s so nice to be appre­ci­at­ed for the lit­tle things.

• Mabel stop­ping (ran­dom­ly) what she’s doing to run over and plant a lit­tle pico (peck) some­where (any­where from knuck­les to knee caps) before run­ning back and resum­ing play where she left off.

• Hav­ing Dad­dy fall asleep on the job, send­ing Mabel to find mama who *should have been hav­ing* some nap time to her­self. Usu­al­ly announc­ing “Dad­dy fell asleep. Can you get up and play with me?” [sigh.]

• Hav­ing a hus­band who lets me escape most Sat­ur­days to have a few hours to myself…and so much needed!

• Hav­ing lim­it­ed Spanish…meaning that when I take too long to answer Mabel’s “¿como se dice…{fill in an eng­lish word}?” while I’m try­ing to think of the trans­la­tion, she announces “we have to ask Daddy!”

• Won­der­ing how “all” the oth­er mamas seem to be doing it all, while I bare­ly make it to 6:30 pm each day…

• Being amazed dai­ly at the won­der­ful lit­tle spir­it that blessed our home.

No mat­ter where I am, I am told how impres­sive Mabel’s talk­ing is. Not just her words, but her com­pre­hen­sion and ana­lyt­i­cal thoughts. I love to hear her sto­ries and thoughts…to get an insight into her mind. When she’s not talk­ing, she’s hav­ing fun in her own world. 🙂