are you my mother?

I've been doing a little jogging lately.  Well, not jogging exactly.  It's more like loping.  I've never been much of a runner.  This is ironic, considering my height and build, but true all the same.  In this season of life however, with 3 little kids who are busy from the moment they wake up until the moment they crash at night, quiet is something of a rare jewel.  So AJ and I have been trading off for 30 minutes a day, getting out and exercising and taking in the quiet sounds at the little nature trail up the street.

It's a good time to pray, listen, and let my mind ramble where it will.  Every once in a while I do get stuck in my rambling, and with school fresh behind me, it sounds a little something like this in my head: "I wonder how much ATP I'm getting from glycolysis right now?  Probably not as much as I'm getting from the beta oxidation of my fatty acids.  Way to go electron transport chain, you are awesome!!"

But these days I have other great things to think about.

I may have mentioned before that Jack doesn't call me anything.  When he needs something, he will yell from the other room.  "HELP!" or "AAAHHHH!" or "NO NO NO NO!" Or when he's not particularly wound up, he'll come and get me with a cute little grin plastered to his face that I can't resist.  "Cheese?  Juice box?  Cracker? Fruit snack?"  But he doesn't call me a name.  It's funny how AJ and I weren't even really consciously aware that was missing until Camille started calling us mommy and daddy.  Of course, we know he knows we're his parents.  He just hasn't figured out what to call us yet.

And then a couple of weeks ago, it happened. AJ was busy in the kitchen when Jack ran in.

Jack: "Help!  Help please!"
AJ: Hold on buddy, just a second.
Jack: "HELP.  HELP PLEASE!"
AJ: Just a second Jack.
Jack: Dad.  HELP.

Just like that. It was music.  Of course I was thrilled he said 'dad', and he's been saying it daily ever since.  But longing now all the more to hear him call me mom.

Fast forward a few weeks.  I have tucked the kids in to bed and I'm cleaning up.  AJ is getting Camille down to sleep in her room.  Then we hear in singsong, from down the hall, "MOMMMMMMY!"  I thought it was Camille.  Then AJ poked his head out of her room, "Did he just say mommy?"  I go into Jack and Livvie's room, and Jack is grinning on the floor (he likes to sleep in his bean bag chair on the floor).  I think he knows he's just done something dramatic.  "Mommy!  Mommy!", he says again.  I'm too shocked to cry, I just smile and say, "Do you need mommy?  What do you need Jack Jack?"  He replies, "Story book." and then goes to get a book from the bookshelf.  It doesn't matter that we've been reading and playing for an hour, and it's now 9 o'clock.  I will stay as long as he wants me to.  And in the most poetic gesture that has ever been made, he hands me one of my favorite books that he's never showed the least bit of interest in:
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.

So we read Are You My Mother a few times, he snuggles in to bed and drifts off.  It doesn't hit me until I'm out loping the next morning what mountain-shifting event has just occurred in my heart.  Mommy.  Mommy. The most beautiful word I've ever heard.  This morning it's easy to turn off the ramblings of my busy mind.  I close my eyes and listen to the quiet sounds around me.  The drumming of a woodpecker.  The fanning of leaves in tunnels over my head.  The steady tinkling of the creek.  Everything that is breathing and living and moving.  They're all saying Mommy.