On Relationship: The Heart of Parenting

We snuggled every moment we had this past weekend and finished reading Anne of Green Gables, my five year old and I. She's not quite at an age where she can fully appreciate the story, but she asks for it and she sits through it and we bond through it.

These days we connect with stories, the twinkle of an eye, an extra long hug at night, and mommy/daughter outings.

When did our relationship become so sweet? so special?

I remember her at just two, when her younger brother was born, feeling like I had not held her enough or spent enough one-on-one time with her and then suddenly she was to be shared with not one sibling, but two.

I remember her at two-and-a-half, how we gave her crib to her baby brother, moved her to a toddler bed, and battled her staying in bed for the next year. 

I recall trying many of the tools that worked for gaining compliance with her older brother, ignorantly attempting to conform her to her brother's temperament and she demanding in a fit of tantrums that we see her for her own person. 

And although we poured into her and loved her the best we knew how, I recall those struggles more than I do the tender moments. 

Then just over a year ago I crept into her room after everyone else was tucked into bed. We sat on her bed and took turns braiding each others hair, she telling me stories, singing me songs, sharing her heart; me rubbing her back, praying, and reading to her, "Letters to a Princess." Then forty-five minutes to an hour later I would close the door to her room for the night.

This became a nightly ritual.

My husband wisely warned me of the habit I was forming, for she would need the extensive tuck in always by starting this. But it didn't seem to matter...

We more naturally grab moments throughout the day now. And she doesn't need me for forty-five minutes at night anymore. But  when I think about how and when our relationship developed into a series of cherished moments, I can trace it back only as far as just over a year ago when we started the mommy/daughter bedtime ritual of shared stories and hearts.

I didn't know it then but I pray with all of my heart now that this habit we formed when she turned four will continue to be treasured times throughout her life - braiding hair and sharing hearts on her bed when she's twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen. That we'll always carve out that time to talk about what is on her heart and that it would be a very comfortable and safe place for her.

I pray that we will continue to bond and connect through moments that are grabbed when I've released what I think compliance should look like and pay closer attention to the heart. 

Sharing with Finding Heaven