You Danced When You Were One

You danced when you were one. The music was loud, pop rock, mom and dad's stuff. Not kid stuff or baby Einstein or Mother Goose. You didn’t yet know how to walk and you wore a jean dress with a pink and brown flowered skirt. It must have been Sunday after church. I know because that was what I put you in on Sundays. This also meant daddy was home and we kept the day slow. Slow was our motto mostly because we were too dang tired to do anything else. A second pregnancy and a one year old who was still getting up is enough to do that to you. Daddy put the music on. I’m sure of it because as a first time mom I felt the need to do it all perfectly, and perfectly would be to have you only listen to soft Christian songs or Mother Goose. As a third time mom my poor little third baby has only listened to radio pop and I am pretty sure she will never hear the sounds of baby Einstein. Alas, things change as time goes on. Life gets looser. Motherhood becomes less tight knit and more full throttle. The little stuff isn’t stressed, the big stuff is thrown in your face.

But Daddy already knew that. Daddy always already knows. So the music was on, and he was singing and I was loosening up a bit too. You crawled to the speaker and stood up. Right near the bookshelf where we kept your favourite books. Okay, all your books. Because all your books were your favourite. Surprisingly the books were neatly on the shelves, and you had space.

You stood up. And you began to wiggle. We both saw and we both laughed. You giggled too. I grabbed my phone and began the videoing. Which, to be honest I wasn’t good at. The videos we have of you are few and far between. But this moment I took. Perhaps we thought you might begin the first steps we all waited for. But nope. Just a wiggle.

A dance wiggle of the hips and a giggle of the mouth.

It was done in less than three minutes. And yet. I remember. I remember so vividly like it was yesterday, not four years ago. It was just a snippet in your tiny life. It’s a snippet you will never know yet I will always have running in my mind as I watch you score goals, make grades, and perform on stages. I will remember that first time you gave a little standing wiggle and a giggle to go along.

Years will continue on, days will become blurs. I will forget and I have forgotten so many of the details already. From words to events. It’s with my third I now know how quick and how forgetful I really am. But there will always be these moments. These moments of minutes that will carry on for a life time.

I never know when one of those moments is being made once again. I never know if today will be a day where a moment will be carried along for years to come.

So I stop. I take time off my phone. Off my laptop. Off the load of laundry. I leave the dishes and keep the house dusty, because one thing I do know. I won’t carry on a memory of wiping off the dust, but I will carry on a memory of a tickle fight in the middle of a board game.

I don’t dare miss a moment I might remember for a life time.

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--- This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale - an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series 'Remember This' by Jacey Writes.
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