Holding Hands

On Sunday at church, Lucy was sitting on Mike's lap and Emily was sitting with Mike's mom. For some reason, I looked over at Lucy and held out my hand. I'm not entirely sure what I was looking for, maybe for her to give me five, but instead she threaded her fingers through mine.

We sat there, holding hands for the longest time, easily 10 or 15 minutes. It was so sweet to have her little hand in mine. I rubbed my thumb along the back of her hand and marveled at the softness. I squeezed her hand gently and she squeezed back.

The position of my arm wasn't very comfortable and my right hand was completely out of commission, which made turning pages in my Bible challenging, but I wasn't going to let go for anything.

I have these moments as a parent when I realize that they really like me. I love my kids so incredibly much and I know that they love me, too, but they aren't always good about expressing that love. Especially Lucy, whose verbal skills are only a few steps up from the caveman. Emily is just now starting to be expressive about her feelings, telling us she loves us or that she's happy to see us (she told my mom that she was really happy my mom was with us today*, which melted Mom into a giant puddle of Bwama** goo.)

I was also strangely reminded of my first date with Mike. It wasn't supposed to be a date, we were "just friends" and were supposed to be going out with another couple. The other couple backed out at the last minute (which was really ok with us, since the guy was a complete jerk) but Mike and I decided to go out anyways. We saw Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. During the scene where Doctor Evil and Frau Farbissina get together, Mike and I started holding hands. And it was the same kind of I-don't-want-to-do-anything-to-make-this-stop feeling that I had with Lucy.

* I took the girls to the pediatrician today. They've been running fevers since Monday and Emily was clearly having trouble breathing AND she told me it was hard to breathe. Emily has walking pneumonia. Lucy has walking pneumonia, though to a lesser extent, AND an ear infection. AWESOME. Again, I went to the doctor's office fully expecting that she was going to say it was just a cold and it would clear up in a couple weeks. Not so much.

** Bwama is how Emily pronounces Grandma. There's an "r" in there somewhere, but I'm not sure where. I will be really depressed when she gets the pronunciation of all her letters right. Her toddler speak is just so darn cute.

Oh! And while we were at the doctor's office today, my mom figured out a Lucy-ism. Lucy's been saying something-something-dah! I knew that dah is "down" but I couldn't figure out the rest of it. It's "We all fall down" from Ring Around The Rosey. Genius, that mom of mine is.