Somewhere in my archives I must have told you the story about the day in 1997 when my husband and I walked with our 4-month-old baby over to the park we could see from our front porch. We'd never been there before, but we thought we'd check it out. Another family was there that day, with two little girls and a brand-new baby boy.
We chatted with them for a while as we pushed the kids in the swings. They lived in the neighborhood too. They'd never visited that park either; they had stopped by on a whim that day, just like us.
The next day my phone rang and it was Beth calling to see if I'd like to come over for lunch. (Back in 1997 she could just look me up in the white pages and call me on my curly-corded landline.) We've been friends ever since.
Beth was the mom in this post who was bringing her daughter to Gladlyville for college, and that daughter is the favorite babysitter I posted about when she got married. Nine years later she is expecting her fourth baby. The three of us got together today for muffins and conversation.
Back in the fall Beth told me over coffee that she thought I'd influenced her daughter's parenting. I thought it was a kind thing to say, but I was not convinced it was an accurate assessment. Today, though, she brought it up again and Breanna agreed. She talked especially about giving kids the freedom to make low-stakes choices.
The year of my postdoc was really hard and I did NOT feel very much like a good influence. It felt like I was always running full tilt from the Chaos Juggernaut, which would squash me if I stopped to catch my breath. We laughed about it today, and she said even the chaos was helpful to see: in a big family, there is a lot going on, and that's okay.
I am thinking a little wistfully about the boys who were tiny babies on that long-ago April day at the park: for at least a decade now they have been taller than we are. Breanna has fond memories of toddler Stella-- when she started babysitting for us in 2010, Stella was just the age that her daughter is now. This morning I watched her little girl, who was having a tough morning, resting against her mama's 34-week belly. I am thinking about all the unexpected gifts I have been given through circumstance and happenstance, and wondering what other gifts might lie ahead.
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