I'm gorgeous
Recently, there have been a number of posts I admire out there all about appearances. As I lack the depth of skill with words I can't keep up with the level of discourse they proffer so let's just say in related news.. last week my daughter described herself as follows: "I'm gorgeous"
I think the vogue photo above attests to her emerging vanities. I am in a word delighted. I am thrilled to hear the clear voice of my daughter filled with self esteem. It is a declaration she has not picked up from me. To be honest I don't know that she is 'gorgeous' this word is far to mysterious in its modern meaning, anyway.
I don't really think of her all Brooke Shields like in the first photo.
I think of her more like the previous moment captured here:
Or as the dear doll you see here from last Christmas time.
Most intimately I know her as the doe-eyed monster freshly risen. (that is the face that emerged from nap into the hub-bub of her 1 year birthday party)
My daughter is my faith and love of life as surely as my son is my heart and my patience. They are beautiful cherished people.
I should confess that posting on my adoration for my children has left me feeling a bit apart from these other admirable posts. I have had twinges of hestation about posting on this at all. So here I am posting twice! (Ah, sensible remedy!) In the precipating post a phrasing of how mothers might want to just eat up their babies rang out? Or did it merely jingle a bit?? Probably I exaggerate...
This is a concept over which I despair. Here I wanted to say a little of my unease with the concept. Heck, I even shiver at the monster claim to 'eat you up we love you so.' I have good and limited and personal reasons for my unease. While I am sure that for many the nature of these words are wholly different.
My mother lives for -- through? -- the edible child. To this day no worry I have, no promise I hold, no happiness I encounter can't be hers to chew up and spit out. It is a bone in the throat of us both -- though she would see it less so.
Mindful of the burr this was in my growing up I check myself constantly not to fall into this manner of mothering. I am consuming instead the goal of respect for my children. Driving always toward ensuring I do not 'eat up' my children. It is imperative I do not return the bravery of their emergence into this world with some hubris. Once they make it out here they need not be bothered with any thoughts that Mommy wants to put them back.
And.. speaking of emergence, wish me luck getting my nerve to post the Nuthatch birth story, I think we are getting close! (Updated to add, birth story now here.)
posted by mo-wo at 11:37 p.m.
5 Comments:
Interesting take on the subject, Mo-Wo. I confess to feeling the need to consume my daughter from time to time, if only to put her back from where she started. I know I'll have to tone down the eating-up thing in time, but I'm going to take the next few months of babyhood to feast.
And your daughter IS gorgeous. The picture of her in the glasses is priceless but my favorite will always be that Christmas picture.
I love the Christmas pic, too, but you know what made me laugh? That I was totally going to say how edible your kids look in the new profile pic before I read this post, LOL.
For me, the eating metaphor is about savoring and delighting in my child (which is what I do with food--unless I am bolting it down because D is trying to take it for himself or is careening about hell-bent on some course of self-destruction). But I see your point. Very Medea-aware, as it were.
I loved your descriptions of what your children are to you, and I promise if I borrow them, I will make full attribution to you. :)
This is a fantastically interesting post.
And I am with you on the word gorgeous. But she is stunning, beautiful, cute and all the other words you can think of and good for her for knowin it.
I soooo hear you (to abuse an over-abused phrase.) This is one of the reasons why I have found it so difficult to write about (and why my own post/s is/are still pending) - quite apart from my stated reasons, there remains the problem of overused tropes and figurative language that is troubling in its own right.
So, what words to use? In a way, I still think that this is unbloggable. There may be no words that properly walk the line between too little and not enough.
Drama, drama, drama.s
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