Cookie Moments

I consoled a sobbing 9 ½ year old this morning .  In between high pitched wailing explanations, I gathered enough information to know that it wasn’t at all about a “boring summer” or “summer going too fast and before we know it, it’s gone.” It was about change.

Her single digits waning, she’s feeling her age.  Her older sister doesn’t want to play American Girl dolls or build a couch fort or a plan an adventure outside.  She doesn’t want to play the games they both used to love.  “All she wants to do is read or talk to a friend or go to town for ice cream.”  After her 354^th something-fun-to-do suggestion to her sis was turned down, my daughter lost it.

Her sister is heading to Jr. High.

My little one’s cries unexpectedly summoned the whole family to my office where she had wilted.  As I moved her hair from her wet face and gently stroked the sobs back down to normal breaths, I found my mind in another house, in another time, consoling my first daughter as she was beginning school – 4 year old Kindergarten, to be precise.  I told the story as the four of us sat there, getting older.

Her big sister loved learning, she loved her backpack, her teacher, the idea of a school bus, but it was all change.  It was all different.

She had a cookie in front of her that had fallen from her hand and broken into a few pieces on the table in front of her.  She wasn’t a whiner kid, and so when she too fell to pieces over this broken treat, I sensed something more.  Instead of my first instinct, to tell her that it was ridiculous to mourn a broken cookie… that she still got to eat the WHOLE thing, I listened.  I hugged.  I gathered her into my lap, close to my chest, and let her sob.

“It’s okay, Honey.”

“No, it’s not.  It’s broken.  The cookie will never be whole again. I wanted it whole.  I liked it whole.”

I silently cried with her, knowing she was so right.  It won’t be the same again.  Not ever. It might still taste like a cookie and there will be thousands of other cookies in years to come that might even taste better, but that cookie will never be the same as it was a moment before it broke. 

When my eldest was at school, her little sister stayed home and napped, or had “mommy time” and she wasn’t there to witness or participate.  We rushed more, we met new people and saw them more and others less. We did new things, we learned new songs. Before too long, we moved where there were no fences around the yard, and now, those boundaries just keep getting bigger.

As my littlest reached for a tissue, signaling that she was done with her tears for now, I noticed the soggy eyes of my eldest staring out the window and down at her lap and I remembered the last sweet detail of the broken cookie moment.

While my eldest was cozied in my lap 8 years ago, still lamenting her cookie loss, I asked her if she was ready to eat her cookie.  She said, “no Mama, there’s still more sad in me.”  So I let go of the rushing, of the dishes, of the laundry, of the idea of a “big girl” and of moving on to the next thing.  I held her and her sadness, rocking us both gently, until it was gone.

My girls found common ground in a Wii game, giggling and jumping around. The day moved on.  There will be more (Lord willing), but not this one.  

Enjoy every morsel.