Always

We interrupt this blog silence to bring you the news that Maia is simply spectacular at this age. For the first time I'm having a real sense of wishing she wouldn't change. Chloe was great at four, but I had the feeling better things were ahead (also I think her whining was already a force to be reckoned with?). Maia will probably be even better as she gets older, but I can't imagine how. She's still baby-cute and small enough to pick up and laughs like a toddler, but she's learning to do gymnastics and math and she's started drawing people with eyeballs and five fingers and she's doing her determined best to learn how to sound out words (she can spell "the," "love," and "in," and recently wrote a card "To Mom and Dad frum Maia"). I suppose the occasional tantrum could be improved, and I can't wait to see how she does in real school, so it won't be so bad as time goes on, but I still want to keep her like this always.

She's started worrying about mortality, though, which makes me sad. "I wish we could be reborn," she said the other day. And a few weeks ago she reduced me to tears when we talked about what to put on her tombstone (we were discussing graveyards because of Halloween) and she said it should say "I love my family and my life. I wish I could keep it." I've told her that she has a long, long life ahead of her and death is not a thing to worry about now. Then we talked about things that are good in life, such as juice, pizza, tickling, and being done with work. I hope she won't worry about it. I hope I haven't been influencing her--I've been thinking about it a lot myself, but I don't think I've mentioned it around the girls.

"Do you love me?" Maia asked the other day when she was interrupting me in the middle of work (I love these interruptions as long as they don't go on too long).

"I always love you," I told her, while she climbed up in the chair and I twisted her upside down and bounced her gently on her head on my lap. "Even when you're screaming, even when I'm yelling, I love you, love you, love you."

"Bounce me more!" she said, so I did.