Celebrating and Sowing Seeds

One day, I will wish I remembered her voice better.  I will smile at the thought of how persistent that little voice was in the little days.  That over and over again, repeating every question and (even every statement) until I respond, in-my-ear and at-my-side voice of a four year old.  Some days it grates me.  Some days I get so weary of talking and listening on a four year old's level and I just work my way toward nap time when I can do the dishes and think. Quietly. By myself.

But there are other days, too.

Days when I sit outside of myself and I see these little days for what they are:  fleeting.

I nod and smile at her observations of the obvious, the way she needs to say simple things out loud.  She wants to say that there are more pink lights than blue ones on the tree and she wants to know I heard her say it.  She wants to remember things out loud and wants me to relive them with her, laugh at those same stories and act surprised at the same punchlines.  

She won't always be so concerned with sharing her thoughts with me.

Or maybe she will.  

Maybe, if I can do this right, if I can learn to listen well and appreciate her voice at four years old, she might still feel like sharing at sixteen.  Twenty. Beyond.

What I sow into her life now will be what I reap in the later years. And things only get harder. (or so I hear.)

There are seeds I want to sow into my relationship with my daughter this Christmas: mutual respect, shared excitement, appreciation, gratitude. 

They are the seeds I hope I can sow into every relationship in my life. Those and so many more. 

Reliving the stories from our Jesse Tree ornaments.  I explained our Jesse Tree here a few years ago. 

Today I've linked-up to Tuesdays Unwrapped, where we write about "Anything that causes you to pause and celebrate the moment.  Not what will be or what is to come, but what is real and true this day: the messy, the lovely, and the unexpected."