She’s sensitive, too. A few nights ago Tricia and Ainsley were alone in the car on their way home from running an errand together. As they passed a nearby school Ainsley looked out the window and asked, “Mommy, is that a high school?”
“Is high school where you sleep at school?” she asked.
Tricia thought a moment, trying to figure out what Ainsley was talking about.
“No sweetie. You don’t sleep at school in high school,” she answered. “That’s college you’re thinking of.”
“Oh.”
Ainsley became very quiet. After a few moments she spoke again - this time her tiny voice beginning to quiver.
“I don’t want to go to college.”
“Why not,” Tricia asked.
Ainsley began to cry.
“Because I don’t want to leave my family,” she sobbed.
Tricia gave her a moment to calm down.
“I want to be a cashier when I grow up,” Ainsley said. “Grandma said you don’t have to go to college to be a cashier.”
“That’s true,” Tricia answered. “But you still might want to go to college.”
“No, not to be a cashier,” she said. “I want to be a cashier at Publix. Because that’s where you shop.”
After a few more moments of whimpering and thinking about all this Ainsley said, “Mommy, could you not tell anyone I cried?”
There was a time when Harper used to constantly tell us “I love my family!” She still asks to sit in our laps after dinner and gives out the occasional hug. However, she’s getting older and trying to find a balance between being our little girl and acting like the older kids she sees at school and in movies and television shows. She's now careful to avoid kisses on the mouth and often fails to acknowledge a good night peck on top of the head while reading in bed. She has a number of really close friends and can go whole weekends barely seeing either of us.
Ainsley is just two years behind Harper and I wonder if our days of being the most important people in the whole wide world will soon draw to a close. I wonder if we'll have to go looking for those hugs and kisses. Looking at Ainsley right now, it’s hard to imagine that could be true.
What a cool post. I love knowing your kids - as much as I do. I feel like I know Ainsley and all of you guys better when you write about them. It is a good thing you are writing about them now because they change at the speed of light. In reflecting back on my backseat little boys in my last post it seems impossible that those 10 years have passed. You capture a little of their essence through writing about who they are now, what they've done and how you feel. You will remember it in ways you wouldn't from pictures or even video.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. One day you'll turn around and think, "Wait. Did Ainsley hug me this morning? ... When was the last time I got that kiss?" If you knew it was going to be the last one, you'd savour it even more, wanting to remember the feel of her little arms, the shine in her bright eyes, doing anything you possibly could to memorialize it and keep it with you forever and ever. And, well, they do hug as teenagers. But, it's a different feel, a different smile, a different look in their eyes. Still sweet, still special - but, different.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of finishing the book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life that my students and I shared at the beginning of the year. The book is one that shares different perspective on meaning and life. One of my 4th graders, who often works to put on a hard, cold exterior found himself crawling on top of the couch to sit closer, and reaching to hold my hand by the end of the book. As he was crawling up, he loudly blurted out very unapologetically, "This part makes me feel like crying!" It is so life-giving for me to see my students negotiate the maze of becoming, out loud like that. Ainsley sounds like such a cool kid!
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