Zoe is standing at her craft table, intently pounding big red splotches on crisp white paper. Her brush's bristles are all smushed from the pounding and her apron pulls sideways and I almost point these things out to her but don't. Eliza is nursing away in my arms and I suddenly realize that she's in need of a burp so I carefully disengage her Hoovery pucker, grasping firmly under her chin to hold her wobbly body upright.
At which point Zoe discovers red paint all over her apron and, since it is pulled to the side, her shirt.
Cue tantrum.
I can't get too involved with, or worked up over, the tantrum because I've got to go change a freshly poopy diaper. So I leave Zoe to it and tell her I'll be right back.
When I return, Zoe is back in action, pounding away, this time with green paint. I notice there is a rag from our rag basket lying on the craft table, covered in red paint. The smushed paint brush sits on top of it, discarded for another, better, not-smushed-yet brush that she found in the paint bin.
Seems she figured some things out for herself.
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We are playing in the living room and Zoe wants a snack. Eliza has just finished nursing and is in a milk coma. I tell Eliza: "Mommy has to go help Zoe now. I'll be right back." mostly for Zoe's benefit but partly for Eliza's too. I buckle Eliza into her vibrating chair and cover her with a blanket.
After a few minutes spent setting Zoe up with her snack, I return to find Eliza, eyes open, staring at the wall where our black and white photographs are rimmed with thick black frames. Her eyes focus in and out and I see her sizing up her world and taking it all in, in her own time, by herself.
I pick her up and hold her, alone, just the two of us for just a few minutes. My breathing slows. My lips and nose brush back and forth over the downy fuzz on her head, the soft spot in her skull making my lips do a dip now and again. For just a moment, I am truly here with her.
Zoe calls for me and I return to the table, baby sister in my arms.
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They both have me but they both don't have all the attention, all the time.
I'm really starting to understand how this can be a good thing. For all of us.
