Livia’s class teddy bear, Theodore or Teddy as he is often called, came home with her this weekend. She was ecstatic about this development and proceeded to cuddle him at every opportunity.

The one requirement at the end of Teddy’s visit was a small story on what he did over the weekend. The writer in me needed restraint to not embellish Livia’s words in the classroom journal. After recording her story, I gave her a set of colored pencils so she could draw a picture. The following image is what Livia came up with.

Do you see what she wrote next to the picture? Do you see her first sentence? Yaaaayyy, Liv!! I asked her later how she wrote the sentence and she said she “turtle talked” it. Sometime you’ll have to ask Livia for a demonstration of turtle talking—it’s a fascinating method of sounding out words and I have no idea why it’s called turtle talking. Anyhow, when you adopt a kid you just don’t know much about their development. When is she going to walk? Talk? Read? Write? Etc, etc. And, as mothers often do, you worry a bit about your child. So it is with great pride and great joy that I mark my child’s first sentence. What a beautiful thing.

Today is Livia’s first snow day, but I’m not sure she grasps the grandiose nature of it as the morning seems a lot like our mornings for the past two days. Lots of tv, lots of cuddling on the couch. Ah, the lazy hazy days of… winter?

These shots were taken yesterday as the snow began to pile up on the ground. Livia’s never met a flake of snow she didn’t want to eat. Let’s just say I’m glad we have fresh snow for her to munch on. Keeping the old stuff out of her mouth seemed futile!

Livia: Mom, can I stay with you?

Me, thinking of an upcoming trip: What do you mean?

Livia: When I’m a grownup, can I always stay with you?

Me, heart melting: You can stay with me as long as you want to.

There will come a day when Livia is ready to move away from my side, when she finds her first apartment or moves across the country to a dorm room. But for today, for this moment where she needs her mommy and wants to stay close, I am grateful. I pray I have the grace to let her go when it’s time for her to not need me so much.

**************************

After school Liv told me about a video she watched with a ballerina and a toy soldier. This led to questions about real soldiers and, as I often do, I told her way more than she needed to know. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Afghanistan, President Obama, Congress and, oh yes, God bless the USA. I told her there are some countries where people aren’t allowed to worship God and meet together for church, and there are other places where women aren’t allowed to vote or be in charge of the government. There are some countries where children have to work instead of go to school, and there are some places where the government doesn’t take good care of its own people.

She thought seriously about all this, then asked, with great concern in her voice, “Are there places where kids can’t have play dates?”

I love the six year old mind. Because really, what could be worse than not being allowed to have play dates?

We were standing in the long and winding line to the restroom, that post-flight line where the ladies’ room is always full of folks from your own flight, when an older woman began complimenting my daughter.

You see, our flight from Omaha, Nebraska, had almost reached Milwaukee when we experienced a lot of turbulence. A lot. As in, Dear Jesus, my husband won’t survive if Livia and I both go down with this flight kind of turbulence. A giant storm system was sweeping the midwest that morning and our little plane was attempting to land among 50 mph winds in an area that had been hit by tornados a few hours before. The plane jumped and shimmied as it decreased in elevation during this, my first flight alone with my daughter. I tried to be cool and totally failed, my fingers gripping Livia’s hand on one side and the armrest on the other. What did Liv think of it all? She laughed. And whooped with joy. And laughed again at the giant swooping dips the airplane was making. The rest of the passengers, adults mostly, felt like throwing up and/or making last confessions while my daughter enjoyed the ride.

So, in the line for the bathroom, the older woman told my daughter how she had enjoyed Livia’s laughter on the plane. It made her smile and laugh, too, and made the landing not so scary. In that moment, I saw Livia Raine for the amazing little person God has made her to be. While I see, on a regular basis, the struggles and challenges related to her exuberant personality, I could also see how her joy for life is infectious and how it can elevate the mood in a room. I suspect her jubilant, story-telling personality was also the reason airport workers gave her extra chocolate chip cookies on most every leg of our trip.

Our trip alone together was an adventure that contained many moments of fun and happiness and many moments I wish I could do over the right way. In short, it turned out to be like the rest of life. But that moment where a perfect stranger found delight in my daughter is a moment I want to remember for a long time. I praise God for my exuberant little girl.

**I am joining my friend Corrin in a project called January Reflections. Check out Corrin’s blog The Glorious Impossible to learn more.

And then we did a little singing, Easy Bake Oven style:

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Jesus,
Happy birthday to you.

Photos by Livia, taken on my iPod Touch. Granted, I gave her the iPod with explicit instructions it was only for playing kid games (she has a Livia folder with apps I’ve picked), typing on a notepad and—she always reminds me of this one—using a flashlight app. Um, did anyone see “playing with the camera” in that lineup? Yeah, I didn’t either. And yet, I found charm in the end product.

Don’t tell her she’s featured in the December Photo Project today. ;)

Liv, my little tape dispenser, during our gift-wrapping afternoon.

Livia, chucking a snowball at her mother. See that white fuzz at the top? That’s the snowball. Did it hit me? No, the kid needs some work before becoming professional softball material.

This is my DPP alternate for the day. It was a hard choice, but the classic throwing-a-snowball pic won out.

Liv, checking out her new snow duds.

It’s ridiculously cold in Lincoln right now. I know my friends up in Minneapolis are laughing at me and shaking their heads, so yeah, it’s not as cold as it is up north. But still, it’s downright frigid. And there’s about an inch of snow on the ground. That’s one inch of snow that beckons and calls to my six-year-old, Play in me! Play in me!

And she does. Stomping in the snow, making snowballs, eating [dirty] snow off her pink fleece gloves, making snow angels until her nose and cheeks are frozen and red. Then she comes inside, stomping the powdery stuff off her shoes while sharing a crusty ball of snow with Shiloh. And, finally, it’s hot chocolate time.