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I'll Never Go a Day Without My Mama

Pumpkin's been going through a little bit of a mama-phase lately. Her teachers are convinced it is because she really "knows" that a new baby is on its way (she acknowledges "Maggie belly", i.e., Maggie is in mama's belly, but when asked whether Maggie is going to come live responds with a drawn out and incredulous "Nooooooooo," as if we are foolish to ask such a thing). I thought maybe she was feeling a little under the weather. Either way, she's admittedly always a mama's girl but lately has been a REAL mama's girl. My usually independent "Aly do it" little Pumpkin has been wanting to be held and carried and coddled constantly. Most of the time I relish it, and though it does make it HARD to get some things done, I have tried to make the best of it -even having her help me make blueberry pancakes and getting her to do prenatal yoga DVDs with me.

The one thing that has remained difficult and is getting harder by the minute, it seems, is constantly schleping her everywhere on my hip. The difficulty in this has little to do with the fact she is weighing in at 30 pounds and more to do with the fact that my belly has literally quadrupled in size since last week (no lie - I went from "are you sure you're okay, you don't even look pregnant" to "are you sure you aren't due until October" in a matter of days). In any event, I'm an unsteady aching whale and she insists on being carried everywhere - by mama.

As I was toting my little Pumpkin into school this morning, though, I began to wonder when that awful age was going to come where she wouldn't want me to accompany her, much less touch her or (gasp) hold her anymore - especially in front of her friends. When is that day where will I suddenly start to embarrass her? It's hard to imagine that one day she won't be over-the-moon happy to see me, particularly when the absolute highlight of my day now is when I walk in her classroom and she runs as fast as she can across the room with a huge smile screaming "MAMA!!!!!"

That got me thinking about shame and embarassment in general. Right now Pumpkin feels it is totally acceptable to show her absolute and utter happiness at seeing me. She feels the same freedom to walk into class every day this week and tell her teacher "Aly go to da beach!" with utter excitement about our upcoming vacation. She doesn't hesitate to ask for what she wants or tell me what is important to her; and if I don't understand her, she will patiently continue to repeat herself until I do (I can't even begin to explain the length of the conversation we had this morning where she was telling me that her cup "matched" her dress and somehow I was certain we were talking about "princesses"). But she feels no shame. She does not get embarrased. She wants to communicate something and so she does.

So when was that point when all the rest of us were taught we couldn't act that way? When did we stop letting those we love know that we are overjoyed to see them - even to the point of forgetting (or not caring) where we are and running across the room squealing? When did we learn that we couldn't brag (just a little, and in good taste of course) about things that we were excited about like vacations or that if someone didn't understand us and it wasn't important, we should probably just let it go. When did we convince ourselves that what we thought and felt wasn't important to the people around us?

Now don't get me wrong, some of those learned societal norms are good. I'll be glad when she is a little less showy with her frustration. For instance, I think we can all agree that slapping, spitting, and crying are socially unacceptable just because you don't get a Dum-Dum, no matter how old you are. I'll also be glad when the eye-rolling ends (though something tells me that might be a while with two girls). But I hope the love she feels and the confidence she has to show it, never ends. I hope she always feels important and secure and, while I'll be glad to put her down for a little while, I hope she always wants to at least walk hand-in-hand with her mama.

I also hope she continues to get pleasure out of the little things...like walking (err..dragging) the dog up and down the hall on a leash:


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