How much can such a small heart hold?

print by Kenneth Patchen (a childhood favorite)

I have anywhere between 5 and 55 minutes to take a moment and reflect. The Sunday morning nap, appreciated by all is, nonetheless, unpredictable.

We are entering the toddler phase, my plump little baby girl, has stretched out, reached out, and hasn't stopped moving since she has begun walking. She marches around the house every morning like she owns the place–half surprised she even can, and half with the confidence of a drill sergeant. I hope no one ever gives this kid a whistle.

There are many things one gives up exchanges as a parent and one of those that has been besieging me lately, is just the constant distraction. My mind halves as I marvel at her maturity (she can actually get some of that food on the spoon into her mouth now) while calculating the risk assessment of letting her stumble around with said spoon in hand (low, considering the new benefits). Fear and hope. Anxiety and awe. She hasn't a care in the world, save that of the immediate, please don't put me in that car seat again. I am the one that carries with her all that yucky stuff in regards to causality.

But then there are the moments when her emerging independence appears starkly and suddenly and so completely, I am knocked off my feet. And I am proud. And I am something else, separate from her. Watching her. As we begin (already!) to grow apart.

Watching my daughter carrying a full bucket of water with such a focused look of determination and capability. My daughter! And that I hadn't known she could carry a bucket of water, hadn't really imagined it one way or another, but there she was the water dripping down its sides as she held fast the handle, lifting it high into the stream of sunlight. Maneuvering the bucket across the creek, never looking in my direction, and saw the person inside of her. And I knew her.

And what of her own emotions and cognizance? Everything new, everyday. The world a science experiment. Every object to be felt in the mouth. Every surface to be climbed. And then once mastered, to be repeated again. Every vessel to be emptied, some things to be thrown, and then others to be collected again. And her heart? Her tiny heart. Bursting with its own emotions. Pride: please, look at what I have done! Joy: A dog! Panic: where are you going? Fear: where are you going? Irritation: the car seat, really? Frustration: I keep stumbling over the objects I have just tossed! The 0-100 miles-per-hour roller coaster ride of her heart at maximum capacity. Does she know love? I know Freud would say no, as she doesn't even know she exists separate from me. But what does she feel/know/understand of the bond between us? What does she know, for that matter, of me at all?

Now, she can scurry over and climb in my lap. And I know she feels safe. She can move away and then she come back. It's how she tests the world. With me at her center. And this makes me feel something impossibly heavy and real and important and even buoyant, too. It is beyond love. It is beyond. Anything I have know before. And it brings me to her.  It brings me to her.