I don’t write about Nora as much as I used to anymore. A huge part of embracing that whole #ThisIsNine hashtag comes part n’ parcel of what “nine” actually means.
Nine is fierce loyalty, intense emotions, and a both-hands-gripped nostalgia for toys we both kinda/sorta know are on their [slow] way out.
#ThisIsNine…
…Is also tentative requests for more privacy, more autonomy, and more respect.
I miss writing about Nora as much as I used to.
Since the day she was born, I genuinely liked her as a person. I found myself enjoying our 2am feeding sessions where we binged ‘The Office.’ When she was 10 weeks old, I went back to work as a full time nanny and she was my papoose pal. She’s always been mellow, introverted, book-crazy, and the most empathetic one in the room. (Who wouldn’t want to spend an evening or 1,000 with that?)
And as she’s growing, I find myself liking who’s she becoming even more.
#ThisIsNine…
…Means she’s writing a novel on my refurbished laptop from 2008. It means that when she gets to stay up really late she’ll joyfully inform me of the time every five minutes. And it means she’ll utter a cooler-than-cool “See you later, guys” to her friends on the playground before confidently holding my hand as we walk to the car.
Yes, I realize she’s a unicorn nine-year old.
And I’ll love the heck out of every unicorn-esque show of public affection for as long as she’ll possibly let me.
And at home? She still requests that I lift her hair onto the back of her pillow- the way my Mom always did for me- and, as I’m climbing back down her bunkbed ladder, she’ll extend a hand and call out “hand thing,” my cue to grip her fingertips and sway for a second.
Sure, the last part is a bit too much like Dumbo being parted from his Mama for my liking but, like, maybe it’s a tiny bit more apt that I’m willing to admit at this juncture- OW WHAT THE HELL IS IN MY EYE.
But the main reason I’m posting this today is because, out of all of Nora’s #thisisnine newness, the one that snaps me most into Being Presentness…
…Is the addition of her very first pair of glasses.
I mean, sure, she looks absolutely fantastic in them. (Remember your third grade friend who showed up to school one day in glasses and looked so cool that, for the rest of the year, you envied the lucky kids who got to wear them?
And I’m happy that she can, you know, finally see things across the room and on the chalkboard and in her daily surroundings.
But the biggest deal for me? It’s seeing Nora evolve into Person With Glasses. I imagine, barring Lasik surgery or obsessive contact-wearing, she’ll be a grownup who wears glasses fairly often.
Getting a chance to glimpse Future Nora— really seeing a smallish snapshot of what she’s going to look like once she’s outgrown the last vestiges of the ages and stages that feel like they’ll last forever (and the ones that I wish would last forever)? Forgive my hippie-ness, but what a gift.
Finding and acknowledging— and embracing— the moments that let us know that our job, our real job, is to raise people way beyond what we thought and planned and pinned milestone markers next to…well, those moments are kind of great.
So, yeah. #ThisIsNine.
This is nine with glasses. New, improved, and able to see.
It’s pretty nice to be able to see.
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