There was something very specific about feeling my only daughter have the hiccups while she was inside my body that made me study her. I had to, she was making ME uncomfortable.
There is an intimacy I have only found in motherhood.
I felt it deeply start when my girl had relentless hiccups. Who knew? It wasn’t the kicks or feet outlined on my belly; her diaphragmatic spasms made me detail her motions.
I had to study what made her uncomfortable, as I was her comfort or discomfort. Mentally, I had one job.
One, only; I had to comfort my joy.
The selfishness of youth is one that can be held onto for life, causing crisis or crash when we are half-way over it. Hell, you may crash, anyway. Selfishness need not be why.
Hiccups can set you free if you study who you impact.
Deciding a need to care on “hiccup level” is a choice. I only know when MY true choices have been made.
My choices started with the hiccups of my girl. They only truly get made when she hiccups louder than I do.
She’s my selfless.
I’m reminded when my me had the choice and knew I loved the “Mommy” in me so much more deeply than my “me.”
• • •
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Programming and MAGA Youth
(It's long. It matters)
🧵1/16
I grew up memorizing hundreds of Bible verses. I would write them on index cards to study them. I’d go through them one by one and see Ephesians 5:22-24 and immediately knew to say,
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own
2/16
husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
It’s been many years
3/16
since I was told to memorize anything. Ask me if I Googled those verses and I’ll be offended. The act of memorizing verses made them stick. Just like learning how to spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I taught us all.
I was taught songs. “The fruit of the Spirit shows
Dog Epiphany: a photo series of the realization mirrors are a thing. Plus a story.
Photo 1: Raven, always with mom always, on the right watching mom see if she can pull off a 2XL sweater. She can. Next.
Photo 2: Raven decides she approves and draws close for a kiss. The mirror is brand new so she hasn’t hung out with it. She mutters something under her breath about not judging folks who let their dogs kiss them too close to the mouth. Next.
Photo 3: Raven sees a black dog, the kid she barks at most, dangerously close to Mother.
“No one goes near Mother. I am an irked and slightly growling black lab protector to the Queen of Some Stuff.” Next.