Me: “Did you just sneeze into that?”
Billie: “Yes. It’s a good thing my sneeze was an ingredient.”
family
90℉ Feels Like 5,000,000,000℉
Billie: “It’s too hot. If you make me go outside again I’m going to need bacon, water, and an umbrella.”
That Tricksy Sun
FLASHBACK: August 14, 2014
Billie: “Mom. The sun is tricking us. It’s yellow, and it puts its yellow on everything. On the trees, on the benches, in the park… Even the sky is different looking because of the sun. And then you try to look into it and it puts spots in your eyes. You try to say, “Hey sun! Don’t put your yellow on everything! Colors are not the same!” And it puts spots in your eyes!
Without the sun colors would not look the same. We just see colors the way the sun wants us to. It’s tricky, the sun is.”
There is a metaphor in here somewhere that I cannot find because it is 7am and my kid decided to be a philosopher rather than sleep like a normal person.
At Least I Got Frequent Flyer Miles Out Of It
Billie wakes up at 3:30am screaming bloody murder about her ears hurting.
Our flight leaves at 6:15am.
We rush her to the E.R. Despite some waiting room weirdness we get her checked out relatively quickly. Ear infection. Antibiotics prescribed. Pain relief meds given. Doc clears her for take off. It’s 4:50am now.
Our flight leaves at 6:15am.
We rush home quickly to have Doug’s mom drop us off at LAX. Freaking L.A.X. It’s packed. We have to check bags. I flag someone down to help us and they inform us that 2 out of 3 of the bags are overweight by 7 and 6 pounds respectively. It’s 5:25am.
Our flight leaves at 6:15am.
Billie is exhausted and screaming beside me. She’s tired and in pain. I’m calming her down while shoving everything I can into my carry on bag. I wrap t-shirts around my waist. I shove underwear in my pockets- I do anything I can to get the weight down. It works. Our bags are under the weight limit. Barely. It’s 5:33am.
Our flight leaves at 6:15am.
We rush inside to security checkpoint and watch a tour group of 50+ students get in line in front of us. We take the elevator while they take they escalator and get hung up by a TSA agent checking their IDs. We swoop in front of them and get through security. I throw our several shirts and sweatshirts on the security belt and walk through the metal detector with panties in my pocket. It’s 5:50am.
Our flight leaves at 6:15am.
We get to the gate and they are boarding. Billie is delirious. The pain meds are hitting her. She’s wearing neck pillows as crowns and demanding a photo shoot because she “looks so fancy.” She cracks jokes about my panty pockets so that everyone within a mile radius can hear. We board the plane at 5:58am.
Our flight leaves (on time) at 6:15am.
3 minutes into our flight I realize I’m sweating from rushing around like a maniac. Billie looks at me, calm and without any hint of irony, and says, “Mommy. I’m bored. This whole day is a day of boring. Can we do something fun now?”
…
……
……..
Kid. Shut up. Mommy loves you. But shut up.
Advice to Her Cousin (And The World)
Billie: “You can’t get upset, Callie. Because, at the end of the day, you are just a human. And humans are meat. And people eat meat. So don’t get too serious because someone will probably eat you anyways.”
My Daughter Is My Soulmate
When I was little I never fully grasped the concept of a soulmate. I understood it like this: the soul was a pizza missing a slice and someone came along with a slice that exact size (with the same toppings and everything) to complete you.
And, honestly?
That seemed lame.
One dimensional.
It excluded a world of people, possibilities, and circumstances that I had yet to imagine.
I couldn’t stomach limiting myself that way.
Lately I’ve started to view the soul as a galaxy.
A vast and deep neighborhood of constellations circling in, out, around, and through you- unbound by time, physical form, or logical necessity. Just stars. And energy. And light.
And, by that logic, a soulmate is anyone who enters into your self-made universe (with stars and constellations all their own) and expands it. They give you more to explore, they offer answers to questions you didn’t know you had, they challenge and inspire you to get outside of the comfort of your own silly solar system and stretch into infinite darkness until you find whole communities of light you didn’t know existed. They bring parts of yourself to you that you didn’t realize were yours. They offer you a complete sky’s worth of different viewpoints.
A soulmate is anyone who gives you growth in that way.
And you can have hundreds, hell *thousands* of soul mates. You can expand your world an infinite number of times in an infinite number of directions, never limiting yourself, going as far as you can before the fear freezes you.
Your universe is only as grand as the souls you let complete it.
And, for me, my favorite little soulmate of them all is Billie. It will forever be Billie. She offers me parts of my heart that I didn’t know were missing. She challenges me, enrages me, scares me, and makes me hysterical with love. She’s the most brilliant galaxy that I’ve ever been able to set my telescope on. She’s precious and ferocious and terrifyingly astute. She has the ability to shatter my heart then completely re-inflate it in one sentence. She’s the perfect mess of emotions and tenacity.
She’s my soulmate, my heart, and everything that makes me smile rolled into one incredibly ridiculous child with the most insane comedic timing. I thank my stars every day for her.
And on this and every day I am simply thankful.
For her.
For whatever fate that made it possible for me to be her mommy.
For the opportunity to be invited into her universe.
I am grateful to have found a unique soulmate that completes me in surprising ways.
And I look at the sky now and I’m filled with peace.
Art.
<3
Wherein Billie Makes Her Own Memes
I don’t think she gets the idea of the memes… but she had a lot of fun writing these.
And, yes, I did freak out at the “A(n) Owl” faux pas. But she’s five, ya’ll. Give her a break.
(Editor’s note: Calliope is her cousin and Jemi is her aunt… Obviously Auntie Jemi has some serious ‘splaining to do.)
This is Jeff Gordon’s Secret, too…
Billie's Momma 