Miss Cleo

My kids are growing so fast, right before my eyes. Everyone says that happens and therefore we had to on some level accept that it must be true even as we felt none of it. Yet here we are. Their limbs are stretching, their sentences becoming more complex. I sit by and watch the expressions on their faces as they navigate the world, grateful to have a moment and the wisdom to sit and watch and notice. So often it feels like hurricanes swirling all around me.

We made so many people smile last week, Cleo and I. My little peanut. She was the one the doctors worried most about during the en utero periods. At first it was hard for them to find a heartbeat on ultrasound, which is why we did the genetic testing we opted not to do in the first pregnancy. The results came in a long voicemail a couple weeks later, which I didn't listen to for a couple days. When I did, I almost shut it off after hearing everything was fine but kept listening to the very end when the genetic counselor said something like "XX, times two. Two girls."

The doctors monitored this nameless girl child closely, wondering and worrying about the fact that she was so much smaller than her non-identical twin. My husband and I decided on two names we liked, glad to know this time around what kinds of babies would be joining us. Ha. What kinds of babies. As though there is any way of knowing that. Cleo was the first name we chose--I love it. Then we searched to find another name, a fourth name, that would complement the three other short, pretty, interesting names we had found. Daphne.

While they were in my tummy we didn't decide which girl which would have which name. Not officially. But in my mind the Lil Peanut would be Cleo and the Big Little Sister would be Daphne. Big Little Sister because she was Baby B, the one further away from the cervix so slotted to be born second, or in our case, fourth. She would be the youngest of our brood and she was the biggest. The doctors monitored Baby A, Lil Peanut, because she was just so much smaller. Why? they wondered. Would she need to come out early because of her small size? When I held the palm of my hand against the roundness of my belly, communicating with these determined little girls who had been so committed to being born that they inexplicably slipped the eggs holding them into my womb when no one was watching, I would tell her, the littlest one, to do what she needed to do to be ok. Whatever ok meant to her. I sang her Inch by Inch, The Garden Song

During the final ultrasound the worried doctor checked again and ultimately declared "Maybe she's just the runt!" Maybe her sister is big for their age and she is small for her age but they will both ok anyway. And they were.

Cleo hangs from monkey bars and ropes, body still as her powerful little arms hold her up with their power. She lies down in the middle of a path, refusing to go one step further, no matter how much I urge. I knelt in the dirt on the way to a wedding held in the middle of a field, watching as the other well-dressed guests streamed by us, waiting out my small, determined daughter who refused to walk anymore. I gave in because she would not.

She changes her clothes many times a day. Either because her pants get a little wet or her shirt gets a little dirty or she doesn't like the color combo. Discarded clothing dots the floors, marking her trail. She is committed to babies and always has been, since she was a baby herself. The only one of our four to love dolls immediately. She asks that I wrap one up and then criticizes my technique. Not like that!

She insists on buckling her own car seat as I stand in the rain watching her struggle to push a buckle closed with her small hands. She can do it every time on her own.

She is watchful and always has been. She drinks everything in, wide eyes open. She has been known to dismiss adults with a shift of her eyes, a movement in her eyebrows. Strangers remark on it.

We went on a date last week, my little girl and I. She changed her clothes four times and at one point I wondered if we would even leave the house. We drove to Orinda and hopped on Bart, she feeding the ticket into the machine and boarding the escalator without assistance. I had to tell her five times to stay behind the yellow line as we waited for the train; she was not down to obey the command and I finally had to physically pull her back. We got out at Embarcadero and walked the few blocks to Yank Sing for dim sum. Her first time but she tried everything, even figuring out how to make the chopsticks work for her. She kept asking when we would get on Bart so rather than attempt the museum I had suggested we headed back, taking a different route. When it came time to cross Embarcadero to the water side she refused, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk because she was mad that I wouldn't let her cross the street without holding my hand. Rather than drag her or get mad I backed off, letting her sit and wait it out until she was ready. Adults walked around her. I took deep breaths and looked across at the Bay, reminding myself that this was what we were here for. Eventually she stood up. We crossed the street to the left instead and she held my hand. When we let go she stopped and climbed up on a cement planter and there we stayed as she walked around and around and around the perimeter of that box. I watched as people in their cards looked out at her as they waited at the light. Smiling. Fondness and appreciation and love of life, of innocence, in their eyes. That used to be the way I looked at mothers and their children, fathers and their children, marveling at the wonder of being able to share moments with such little people as they met the world time and time again.

It is so rare that I feel the way I thought I would feel, being the mama. It takes a lot of getting used to.