Charleigh Turns 5

Charleigh Evangeline,

I can scarce believe you are five; then again, you've been five for the longest: so articulate, so deep, so mathematical.

I love you for the hesitancy of your smile and the abruptness of your laugh: how the corners of your mouth ease up like the morning sun, while your laughter isn't, then is, like a lightbulb snatched bright by a string.

I love the sashay in your walk. I love the power with which you pounce and tumble, earning bruises from ill-execution but rarely crying. I neither love nor understand how, in your continual gymnastics, your heel tends to make accidental contact with my face. But I will always remember how, of my four children, you're the one to make my very teeth rattle.

I love how you wear us down with argument. I love how you throw a punch like a boxer. If you ever go down, it will be fighting, and may you be a soldier of the cross, Baby Girl.

I love the clammy, firm grip of your hand when it holds mine: how your fingers don't lie cool, velvety, and unfurled against my palm. I love how your voice will likely never ring out clear and bright as a bell and most likely never on key, but arise always from a place lower than the heart, snagging a bit in your throat.

I love how you are confident, and un, by turns. I love how so many of your weaknesses are mine because I am years ahead of you in learning to overcome them. I can teach you; I can help.

You will be great. You already are. I'm so glad you're my little girl.

Mama