An admired writer recently gave out some news: there are only a certain amount of cute kid stories one ought to write.
I did not receive the news directly, so I don’t know context and the like, but I was asked to comment, and I am thinking about what to say when Hadley comes downstairs on a break from school and starts talking to Corby.
She is telling her about science, and the song “Stewart’s Coat” plays: “I can’t sleep again/I was walking in the park now/children singing songs that/will now make all our dreams come true/I’m in love with you.” Hadley’s voice is sing song-y while she recalls facts of the morning, and I am wondering if this scene and her voice is making all my dreams come true, and how many different ways there are to say, “I love you.”
Surely I have reached my cute story-telling quota. I’ve been writing stories of motherhood since before Hadley was a year old.
“Just give me many chances/I’ll see you through it all/Just give me time to learn to crawl,” the song goes and I can still hear Hadley. “Mom,” she says, “I have a 20 minute break so I’m just gonna talk to Corby until then, OK?”
“Sure that’s fine,” I say wishing I’d known this song in graduate school. Maybe I could’ve recited it in an effort to explain that I am learning to crawl, and it’s going slowly but I don’t know any other way to do it, except feel what I feel and try to find a story about it because I think it’s how I keep living.
It’s all so dramatic.
Once, when Hadley was 2, we took a family trip to Florida. The last morning, she and I were in the living room. I was trying to nurse Harper, and Hadley was lying on the couch with Bear and Goofy. Hadley was telling the stuffed animals about the trip: about the ocean and the seashells and the sunshine that outlined her body where her bathing suit was.
We would go home and we would learn that Harper was not getting enough to eat; that she was losing weight, and I would think of Hadley talking to Goofy and Bear and I would wonder with a guilt that would make me have to return to my knees again – had I been paying more attention to Hadley than Harper? I would recall the facts as I remembered them: Harper’s eyes growing wide whenever she heard Hadley’s voice, her face following the sound of her sister every time, adjusting her head in the bend of my elbow so she could move and see who she wanted to see. Since Harper was born, this is how it was.
“When you give everything/You’re loving the world/The world gives you love to hold onto,” the song goes, and isn’t that what I’m doing? Loving the world? Telling it again and again my love for it?
Every time I write it’s because something has struck me and I must learn to crawl again and now Hadley is talking to her dog about science and the song is over and soon her break will be over and she will go back upstairs to school in her bedroom. She shouldn’t be in the house now. Getting a dog was not in the plan. None of this makes sense, but this is what I have to write about. This is all there is.
I don’t think “cute” is the most precise adjective for the stories you’ve written about your daughters. There’s more than one, and one of them is “true.” Whatever the measure, I don’t think you’ve reached your quota yet. And even if you have, you may be using some from the untouched quota of those who aren’t able to tell their cute and true stories yet, but will see something of theirs in yours.
Keeping learning to crawl – keep sharing your stories – keep writing about your children and the what they are teaching you – in a blink of an eye they are all grown up and saving China, having kids of their own. Cherish these years. What a blessing to have a mom that pays attention to what they are doing, but also to who they are becoming.
I will never reach my quota of Callie Feyen Stories I Needed to Read, including this one. I think the very idea of a “cute kid story quota” says more about the person who makes said quotas than it does about anything or anyone else. Keep ’em coming.