May 6, 2018
Just lately, I’ve started realizing that Selah June and I are developing a relationship. While I’ve been her parent for nearly 4 years, it’s been a dynamic of caretaking and nurturing. My focus is steering her and meeting her needs. But now it’s turning into something more. We enjoy being outside together. We like tackling projects. We feel better listening to music. We listen to each other and spend time in conversation. We find reassurance in each other. And we plan adventures together. I am fully aware that she gets many of these things from her Mimi, which is why we also have a strong relationship. But there are mannerisms and preferences that she is picking up from me. And I didn’t expect that part. It’s both frightening and awesome. She loves me, and I love her.
Right now, she’s coloring on everything. I’ve waited for this stage. It’s my opportunity to direct her into crafting and creative hobbies. I’m sure Jeremy thinks that I should discourage her from coloring on things like furniture and walls, but they’re sweet little signs of her growing imagination. She loves breaking into my clear bins full of stencils and stamps and markers and stickers. At first, I had trouble keeping her from using all the stickers and all the notecards. Then I realized that I hadn’t opened the box in at least 10 years. Did it really matter if she colored on blank notecards? After all, she needs to “make cards for Helen and Evelyn at school.”
Some of her most precious phrases right now include the following…
“It’s okay,” as an aside while she shrugs her shoulders, only to be followed immediately with “Is it okay, Mommy?”
“Can we bring my Ferris wheel?” – when she really means her pinwheel so that she can watch it blow in the wind with the window rolled down in the car.
Her outfits… She wanted to go on a walk and talk her baby (Marshall from Paw Patrol) in the stroller. So she went into her playroom and found her Blues Brothers black hat and her unicorn boots.
I found out on Thursday afternoon when I went to pick her up that she has a boyfriend now. It’s Justin Blalock. He was the boy who loved her rainbow dress so much that he made up a song about it. They apparently decided this and spent the day together hanging out and sitting outside on the playground. Last night, at Grammy’s house, I told Jules that Selah June had a boyfriend now. And he looked at me so seriously and asked “Does he love candy?” I asked SJ. “Does Justin love candy?” “Yes,” she replied. Jules seemed fine with it. Priorities.