“Will you dance with me, mama?”
So many of his questions are hard and ask more of me than I feel I can give.
“Will you play with me?” breaks my heart when I’m in a low moment and playing takes more mama energy than I have.
“I want to go downstairs,” at 6 a.m. brings out the why-can’t-you and if-only questions that are asked so many times when you have a small child and don’t get to sleep in. And, for me, it feels like the time I’ll be on duty is longer than I’m able to entertain him.
“Can I have milk?” is a ticking bomb when it’s not time for milk and I know the required “no” response will instigate a meltdown. That meltdown (his) will cause a spike in anxiety (mine) and a fight-or-flight response – neither option an appropriate one when dealing with a 2-year-old who simply wants milk.
But when he asks me to dance? This I can do. I turn up my song, which is fast becoming his song.
He’s on his feet as soon as he hears the first notes.
Right right, turn off the lights
We gonna lose our minds tonight
What’s the dealio?
He bounces like he’s on one of those mini trampolines, smile at full wattage.
I love when it’s all too much
5 AM turn the radio up
Where’s the rock and roll?
Not at 5 a.m. but we did turn this up early one morning and danced to it in bed. When I peeked down the hall my husband had the pillow over his head.
Party crasher, panty snatcher
Call me up if you are gangsta’
Don’t be fancy
Just get dancey
Why so serious?
Fancy is not a word my little man worries about. “Just get dancey” is a suggestion he doesn’t have to hear twice.
And then the best part, where he kicks the strut in his stuff up a notch.
So raise your glass if you are wrong
In all the right ways
All my underdogs, we will never be, never be
Anything but loud
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks
Won’t you come on, and come on, and
Raise your glass
Just come on and come and
Raise Your Glass!
I watch him he bounces. As he twirls. At one point he stops and shakes his bum.
Dancing with him I laugh.
He stops for a moment and comes to me, arms in the air. I pick him up and he rests his cheek on mine.
“I love you,” he says.
I say it back as he kisses me on the mouth. The he slithers down and we’re dancing again.
In this moment something in me pauses and I can see so clearly what it’s about. Being a mother is not about worrying whether you’re good enough. It’s not about giving in to the anxiety when it hovers, telling you the hours until bedtime will feel like a nightmare-filled eternity.
It’s about saying yes when your child asks you to dance.
So we dance.
And when the song ends, we do it again. Because when you have an opportunity to dance with your child, you Raise Your Glass to that opportunity and dance.
