Magic

Also-yesterday we put up the tree. Well Van and the twins put up the tree. I supervised. And it was Trin's naptime. They did a wonderful job, of course.
When Trin woke up from her nap-I brought her into the front to the sight of the fully lit tree. And my little turtle gave this totally unstaged gasp of amazment.
The rest of us sat around and watched MI-3. But my baby could not take her eyes off the marvel of the tree. She stared at it. She walked around it. She danced around it with such passion, I expected the sky to open up and rain presents around her. At one point she fell to her knees and started bowing at the tree-I shit you not. She wanted to touch each and every ornament. not rip down, or play with, or destroy-just touch. She walked around and carefully picked up each bulb between her thumb and forefinger. She carefully inspected her reflection in each of the silver ones-and then grunted her approval before moving on. She reached, stretched, and then tried to jump to reach the taller branches. I, sickly as I was, could not sit idlly by-I summoned all of my strength to get up and lift my baby so she could continue her inspection. Her hands stoppped at the skirt of the angel. An almost imperceptible "oooo" escaped her lips-I looked at her, my baby, in the glow of the bulbs, the angel reflected in her giant eyes.......this was not her first Christams. Her third, on the contrary. But it WAS. It was her seeing it for the first time. Seeing the beauty of the tree and being MOVED by it. Being AWED. Being unjaded, or biased by movies and commercialism, or opinion or stories, or even memories and just seeing CHRISTMAS for the first time. It was magic.
And I feel so lucky to have her-and to have seen it as she saw it-because SHE moved ME.

I love you baby.