Jubilee is coming into her own lately. I think our 6-day mother/daughter trip really propelled her into a place of security. She is singing and dancing and sassing (oh yes, it happens, but don't think for a second that I put up with it;), and I even had an English-speaker on the bus the other day say to me, "She acts like you've always been her mother." True statement, I think. The speed with which Jubilee has become a Rupp, in every sense of the word, is honestly astounding.
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| Disregard the laundry pile in the hallway. I have four kids. Enough said. |
And yet, when the sun sets behind the skyline, and she and Brave have had their wild and crazy bath, and the giggling and wrestling and tickling are done for the day, she gets slightly - ever so slightly - nervous. Her eyes widen. Her grip on my shirt intensifies. She stalls the bedtime progress with requests for bandaids, and suggestions on how to organize the bathroom. Every night, I assure her, stroke her black hair, kiss the flat bridge of her nose, pray with her, but still the anxiety persists.
Then, the other night, I said something to her that I haven't said, for whatever reason, since the moment she was placed in my arms.
"Mommy's right here," I said, just like I did when I held her for the first time and she was screaming and I didn't know what else to say. "Mommy's right here."
She stopped crying and looked at me from where she lay in her crib, and she repeated me, "Mommy's wight heah?"
"Yes, darling, Mommy's right here."
She smiled, pulled up her covers, and blew me a kiss. Apparently, that was all she needed to know.
