Laugh.
No laughter is sweeter than a seven-year-old in the throws of giggles: uncontrolled, unabashed, unlimited, abundant laughter. She laughs at her sister, mostly; at things she reads, giggling by herself up in her bedroom, or lately, she laughs at things she makes up. Just sitting there, she’ll laugh and tell me that I’ve GOT to hear what she thought of. So I listen. And laugh too, like one laughs at the clumsy jokes of a preschooler. But secretly I long to let it bubble up unashamed like she does so often. Rarely do I give myself this privilege.

Give.
Anything. Flowers, a back rub, her last twenty-five cents, a corner of her candy bar. This one likes to give. She draws pictures, makes castles and cities out of construction paper and scotch tape, and creates bracelets out of beads…and she gives them away. To me, her sister, her grandparents. Even with things she wants for herself, she is generous. She buys me coffee on Mother’s day with the only two quarters in her Hello Kitty wallet. I keep, she gives. I hoard and she spends. Extravagantly.

Jump.
She’s always taken risks and gets this from her father. She jumped off the side of the pool before she could swim, ran straight into the doors of preschool at 3 1/2 without looking back, and has always danced circles around me. She jumps, flies, leaps sometimes without looking what she’s going to land on but knowing she’ll land somewhere. I get stuck. Stuck in the same habits, routines and consequences. It scares me to not know where my feet are going to land, but then again, we never do know, do we?

I have a lot to learn.