Lala

I stopped writing.

I can't remember the day, exactly, that the desire all but escaped me, but in knowing myself, and all the ways I retreat from the world when it feels utterly and blissfully chaotic, I can assume it came without notice.

I just needed to be away from myself. 

I couldn't trust my own words and perceptions, and when the faintest whim came over me to want to write, there were times when the sound of my voice that echoed from writing felt obnoxiously loud.

Transparent and vapid. Exposed and anxiety-inducing.

But the nagging force of motherhood reminded me it wasn't fair to my kids to not write.

For Alana to not know how much her mommy adores her, even on the days I desperately try to escape her and the screeching sound of her wail when part of her granola bar breaks off, or when I pour too much milk in her cereal, or when I don't move quickly enough, or when I breathe and exist in her presence.

But really.

She's amazing despite the chronic crisis stage we find ourselves in lately.

But that is 2, isn't it?

Tomorrow Alana will be three, and if I am honest I have cried nearly every day this week.  I missed her when she was right in front of me. I thought of her 2 year old voice, the way she asks "mommy you come watch movie me?", her excitement about her 'dinosaur party' and the way she responds when I ask "whose birthday is tomorrow?'.

With a beam in her eyes, and a smile wide as Earth, she clutches her chest and replies "Lala".

And some days when she's less excited and not-so-tongue-twisted she goes aptly by 'Lana'.

But you know she's at her happiest when she refers to herself as Lala.

I was meant to have 2 kids, wasn't I?

Two kids so fundamentally different and so wonderfully exhausting and so similarly funny and fiery.

I love my girls.