My Daughter Needs Me

I feel a mixture of nausea and unbridled joy. Flashes of orange flit past the sliding doors as The Greatest Showman soundtrack filters in from the back deck, threatening to disrupt our forgiving neighbors at 9 a.m. Though the Coast Guard HC-130s have probably already done that.

‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake

My 5-year-old daughter raises her arms just like the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker movie with Macaulay Culkin she watches year-round, her lopsided dress twirling as easily as it did when she tried it on over her bathing suit in the Grand Cayman tourist shop. I asked her if an Ariel Barbie might be a better choice for her one souvenir from the Disney cruise, but the oversized, screen-printed butterflies and jagged hem of the orange handkerchief dress called her name. Who was I to argue?

I watch her belt to the crisp blue Gulf of Alaska beyond our yard that I make no apology, this is me, defiantly un-Alaskan in her Caribbean ensemble that clashes with her strawberry blonde hair. If I were to film and post this moment on social media—which I can’t, because my phone serves as her speaker atop the grill—at least one person would say “Isn’t she cold in that sleeveless dress?” at which time I’d recite that Kodiak, Alaska is in the rainforest, not the tundra. It’s actually more mild than Ohio in the winter! And in August, which it is right now, the Base Kodiak kids soak their t-shirts with water guns they find on a neighbor’s porch, chasing each other past chain-linked fences and daisy weeds to Killer Hill or Double Bump or Red Slide.

Normally, I don’t subscribe to teary proclamations of motherly despair that my kids won’t be little forever. I welcome each new stage. The pride of my 7-year-old walking into drama camp unaccompanied. The relief of my 4-year-old asking for banana and peanut butter instead of crying uncontrollably over some unidentified desire. I would never trade the poorly-sewn, throw-on souvenir dress for a onesie with three annoying snaps.

But Loren Allred’s soaring delivery of Never Enough is anything but normal, and suddenly, neither are my emotions.

Hence the nausea.

How many years will I get of backyard performances and unapologetic outfits and skin so smooth I want to spread it on a piece of toast? When, exactly, will I stop wanting to eat my children?

I want to pluck the blueberries out of her eyes and sprinkle her freckles on everything. The sweetness of her lips belongs in every treat and her cheeks are the perfect bite.

Loving my kids feels like contrast hydrotherapy, gaining something vital in the back-and-forth between heat and a cold shock. One moment, I’m writing this love letter to her cheap orange dress, and by the time I get to the next paragraph, she’s abandoned the back deck for her bicycle and managed to get that dang orange dress caught in the gears. I remind her that the last time this happened, our neighbor had to take apart her entire bike just to free her from its snare. Go take this dress off right now!

Deep breath.

What a magical time in life to be Mommy who saves her from the asphalt.

How will I survive it? How will I one day write an essay or a book or a text without pausing to fill a water bottle or wipe a butt or bark out a reminder to put on your helmet?

That sounds nice and also my nausea is back. My eyes sting. I’m a victim of Stockhold Syndrome, but the acceptable kind. My children are my captors, and I’m hopelessly in love, no matter the freedoms they take from me.

I don’t want to argue about why they should eat the peaches they begged me to cut or about who gets to sit in the front of the bathtub. LEGOs are too expensive and what would happen if we just put our shoes back on the rack?

But when I think really hard about peaches or bathtubs or LEGOs or light-up shoes, here comes the stinging eyes and the panicked heart and that pesky nausea.

Is it even possible to live in the moment? Is taking it all for granted inevitable because the orange dress so quickly becomes a pain in the rear end?

Why am I crying.

My 2-year-old goldendoodle is napping in the windowsill with sleek white windmills turning slowly and relentlessly on the mountains behind her. They’re as slow and relentless as the inevitable transition from Paw Patrol to Pokemon. And I’m really not okay.

So I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my faded sweatshirt, tell myself the nausea is probably just my PMDD acting up, and go slice another peach.

Because eventually the orange dress will end up in a bin, or a box, or a memory. But today, it’s caught in the bike chain. And my daughter needs me.