The Hurricane I'll Never Outrun

Soon after Em was born, I got an awful haircut. It was so bad that I decided to pay for another haircut someplace else. Unfortunately that one turned out equally tragic. Bangs and I...we just don't get along. But something good did come of that second haircut. I asked the stylist about a song playing over the salon speakers. It was "Hurricane" by The Hush Sound. I bought it straightaway, and though I think it's about a failed romantic relationship, I saw it in the context of my new role as a mom. 

You're the finest thing that I've done

the hurricane I'll never outrun 

That's my Em. And though I'm trying to figure out how to be the tranquil eye of the storm, more often I find myself swept up in the hail and lighting and 100 mph winds.

I once heard that God sends us the children that will help us develop and strengthen our areas of weakness. So apparently I need patience in abundance. :) Perhaps my biggest problem is focusing on the ways Em frustrates me, instead of the many ways she delights me. So, more for my sake than yours, I'm going to attempt a list of twenty things I love about her:

1. Her enthusiasm

2. The smell of her hair

3. Her laugh--the fake one and the real one

4. Her passion for food (I wonder where she got that...)

5. How she's started kissing her books

6. How intensely she lends herself to a task

7. Her dance moves

8. Her eyes--they see into my soul!

9. Hearing her learn to talk

10. How she adores animals

11. Her love for all things fuzzy and soft

12. Her fascination with older kids

13. How she finally lets me hold her hand while we walk

14. Her uncanny ability to find and uncap any pen within her reach...wait, do I love that?

15. How she loves chasing and being chased (look out, boys)

16. How she fits perfectly in my lap

17. Watching her be so impressed with herself when she learned to walk backwards

18. Her love for music--that girl's got rhythm

19. Her elastic-band wrists that haven't yet succumbed to toddler-hood

20. How easily she forgives

After the line about the hurricane, the song says:

                    I could wait around for the dust to still

but I don't believe that it ever will 
 

For most of Em's life (all 18 months of it) I've been caught in that trap of just wanting her to be older. Old enough laugh...to walk...to talk. Old enough to color instead of eat her crayons. Old enough to be rational :) But the dust doesn't ever seem to still. The grass looks oh so green until we get there. Then it looks like most of the grass we've passed through along the way. My sister told me that there are hard things and fun things at every age. I had this mistaken idea that things would get easier as Em got older, and in some respects they have. But mostly I'm realizing that I'm supposed to get stronger.