All She Wants.

We celebrated Claras second birthday a couple of weeks ago. 

the two year old!

It seems since then she has been growing up at an alarming rate, not least in the amount of words and phrases that are popping out.

She is fully committed to ‘adulting’ and spends half her time astutely observing what we do and the other half copying it…

In church this week she grabbed a service sheet, sat on the chair next to us and then attempted to cross her legs like I was doing (nearly falling off her seat in the process!) I was in hysterics as I often am observing the way that she observes me.

Adulting at a furniture shop
 (her 'grass' magazine is upside down 😆)

Its basically one part hilarious and two parts terrifying.

terrifyingly if I leave my phone in another room she will chase after me clutching it shouting ‘phone mummy PHONE!!’ As she has drawn the conclusion (I don’t know where from!) that my phone is somehow essential to my existence, and without it I might drop down dead. Eek. (maybe over phone use while parenting is a topic for another day.)

Interestingly enough, with all her busyness the most frequent thing that she says to me at the moment is..

‘mummy….sit’

Generally as I am rushing around attempting to achieve any number of tasks in a very short space of time, and really really do not want to sit down. She fixes those big serious eyes on me with an insistent and unwavering gaze and tells me to sit.

All she wants is for me to sit along side her while she draws or plays with the sand or her dolls. She craves my company and my presence next to her.

This morning she just wanted to lie down on the floor and pretend to be asleep next to me while I did the same. Then she got up, kissed me, bid me goodnight and pottered off into another room! Actually it wasn’t a bad way to spend ten minutes!!

Now written down like that it really doesn’t seem like such a big deal -  she wants me to sit so I should sit! But of course it isn’t always that simple. Apart from anything else she isn’t the only Broughton girl who craves my attention and company (hello Sylvie Joy!) and then there’s all the other stuff of life that needs to be attended to.

But all that said I’ve been thinking recently that just sitting with Clara should surely be my priority. How long is she going to want me there with her, inviting me to come into the growing and secret world of her imagination?

It reminds me of with my relationship with God as well, often I put off and put off spending time with him but when I finally open up my bible or just light a candle and sit still, his presence is there, it never left. It isn’t hard or unobtainable, he just wants me to sit.    

So there you go, I am going to attempt to be a little more present and a little more willing to drop what I am doing to join Clara in what she’s doing, and in those rare moments I have to myself I’m going to ask God to come and sit with me a while.