Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly

We are playing playdough when she suddenly scampers down from her chair at the kitchen table.

Just a minute! she warns me in serious tones, her tiny index finger crooked to the left and hovering right in front of her face. I'm going to get da lay-dee-bug.

She crouches down on the floor and gingerly puts her finger out so her bug can crawl on. Then she walks slowly over to where I am sitting and extends her finger out towards me, its hitchhiker invisible to the naked eye.

You wanna hold my lay-dee-bug, mom? she asks, bright blue eyes hopeful and serious. I touch my finger to hers and bring her pet right up to my face.

She's so cute! I exclaim, pretending to count the bug's tiny spots before carefully transferring it back to her.

She gingerly sets the ladybug back on the floor and returns to make green spaghetti and meatballs with me. Within three minutes, the ladybug is forgotten. I never did see that bug with my eyes, but I could feel it brought to fleeting life by my baby's boundless imagination.

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I have been focusing too much on the ragged underbelly of two. On the tiny fists pounding the floor; the eyes locking with mine in defiance before sweeping all of the just-tidied books off the shelf; the implacable demands coming from the back seat of the car with such rapid fire that I'm almost certain I can feel blood dripping out of my ears, staining the shoulders of my sweater.

Two can be trying.

But Two is inherently sweet. Two throws her arms around your neck and kisses you in public for no reason. Two has found her imagination and can play circles around her older siblings. Two can take any group of inanimate objects and make them into a family. Two doesn't pull her hand away when you rub it obsessively with your thumb because the skin feels addictively soft, like talcum powder. Two laughs with her whole body. Two beckons you down to ground level to see things you wouldn't have noticed on your own.

Two is simply trying to figure out this life.

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I'm making dinner at the island in the kitchen when she spirits past me, her arms flapping up and down with abandon.

Come fly with me! she beckons. Come fly with this mama and her baby bird!

Even though we need to eat early because it's piano night, even though my hands are covered with flour, I take off from my perch and flap my arms, keeping pace behind her. I get a sideways glance from the skeptical 9-year-old at the computer, but I don't stop. What else can I do? A bird's gotta fly.