How To Make Mama's Day

We're sitting at the breakfast table, my little ("I'm not cute, Mommy, I'm a big girl") girl and I. We're eating real cereal and grapefruit, pretend eggs and hotdogs, drinking real chocolate milk and coffee (respectively), and real water from tiny china cups. We are surrounded by the contents of her "hair things" tin, a collection of ponytail holders, barrettes, and clips. The smallest of the ponytail holders, used when she had just barely enough hair to hold any sort of accessory, are now our rings. Pastel blue, purple and pink elastic rings. She is wearing her cute yellow and pink pajamas, her hair in complete disarray. I'm wearing shorts and my husband's tshirt (because I never bothered to buy maternity pajamas...maybe next time), no makeup, hair not even brushed yet. It's a typical family scene, one that I would never allow an outsider to see, but still comfortable and normal and right.

And then, in the midst of this quiet mess, knowing that my appearance is quite unpresentable to the rest of the world, my girl looks up at me and smiles for a moment. She says, with the newly developed stutter, "Y-y-y-y-y-y-you are so pretty." I smile back, tell her that she is beautiful, and reach out to touch her face. She grabs my hand and hugs it. And life is perfect.