Mom, Mama, Mommy

I stood there folding laundry while my chatty daughter stood beside me, peppering me with questions. Maybe not even question so much as this. "Mom?" "Yes, dear." "...." "Mommy."  "Mmhmm" I've digressed to just a mumble hoping against hope a three year old can catch a hint that I have had enough questions for the day, my brain is begging for some silence and my patience is hanging on my the merest of threads.  Then again, here it comes, "Mom?" "Yes." "Always choose joy."  Oh wow, it hits me, coming straight out of the blue like that. Yes, it is her sheep verse we call it and we have been learning it for over two weeks now, but why now? Why would she pop it off now when I am folding laundry and trying to be grateful for the extroverted daughter who doesn't understand yet the "need" her introverted mother has for silence.

It's been several weeks since that episode by the dryer, but it keeps haunting me. (I'll admit it, it's haunted me, at least in part, because I was thinking what a good blog post it could make), but also because it is so true.  "Always choose joy." It sounds so simple really. Three short words.  Interestingly enough, one of them is one of those words you are advised never to use in an argument. But there is no argument here, the message is clear, the choice is joy.

As a child, I sang the song "J-o-y, j-o-y, j-o-y must mean, Jesus first, yourself last and others in between." And there it is, joy comes with putting others first. And I do believe it does. I don't believe this means neglecting yourself to the dumps, sloppy clothes, unwashed hair, frumpy style, and a regular poor me mentality. That doesn't exude joy at all. But I do think when I am able to reach outside of myself, to see the little girl who loves hanging out with her mom, who says, "Mom" and then when I say, "Yes dear," she says, "Um, um" (Then we have a little discussion about not taking my name in vain, but in language she can grasp).

Perhaps, I need to look ahead ten years to when that same girl is entering her teens. How desperately I want her to still come looking for me, to hang out with me while I'm folding laundry, to ask the questions that are bothering her. And so, for now, I need to choose joy and answer her 50,000 questions a day, to use it as a building block for her vocabulary, so she can impress her aunt, when she tells her in all seriousness, "It's a struggle for me to go to sleep at night." I need to cheer on that little girl who is learning so many things in such a short amount of time, to use that myriad of questions to plant seeds of curiosity and a love for learning in that young mind.

And yes, there are times when I say, "Why don't you go look at library books right now?" Or, "You are going to need to be quiet because mom really needs to concentrate right now."  But for the most part, I will try to choose joy and continue to answer the questions, knowing that this is a building block of relationship and this is one relationship I want to savor and deepen.

(These pictures capture the milestones of her young life and are here as a result of a mom who simply hasn't gotten any recent pictures (meaning the last 6 to 8 months) worth of pictures uploaded on to her computer yet.)