Oh, Just Tear Out My Heart And Stomp On It

Dear Laney,

You know how sometimes you want to tell a story, but it would require so much backstory and context that you wonder if you could even make it make sense?

Well, here's the thing about country music: Country specializes in the kind of tearjerking songs that have a surprise/twist ending. If a soldier is writing a letter home in the first verse, rest assured that in the third verse, you will find out that he's writing the letter from heaven. If a tough girl fights bullies in the song's intro, she'll be battling cancer by the coda. These are the kinds of songs that a pregnant woman shouldn't listen to on the radio, because she'll just end up crying in her Subaru on the I-90. For example.

Okay, that's Thing #1, now here's Thing #2:

You have this funny new habit when you really enjoy something [like, say, sliding down the slide on a square carpet remnant that your dad gave you so can really pick up speed on your way down] of saying, "More times!" Not "Again!" or "ONE more time!" but a more general/vague "More times!," which could mean any number of times between 2 and 2 zillion. I think it's funny because at least it's honest. You don't pretend like you're going to be satisfied with just once.

Last night, you were helping me make brownies when you started having a crying fit because you're scared of the food processor. I held you and consoled you for a minute, then put you down so I could get back to dessert. Somehow, being put down was WAY worse than facing the Cuisinart, and you started crying in earnest. I explained to you that I needed two hands to cook and I couldn't hold you again. With tears pouring down your red face, you raised up both arms at me and cried, "MORE TIMES!"

And instantly, the country music video started playing in my head - the one that starts with you crying because you want to play every game more times, and then ends with you driving off to college while I stand in the driveway and cry because I wish I could hold you more times.

So I held you, because it was the right thing to do, even though we had dry brownies.

I'm pretty sure that 16 years from now, I won't remember the brownies.

Love,

Mom