My Magical Daughter
Do you miss Christmas? I sure do. Mostly, I miss the magic and wonder it held for our kids.
They are two and four years old- at the frontier of the best Christmas years. I wish I could hold at the forefront of my forever-memory their questions about Santa; the look on their faces each morning when they were so excited to find Snoopy Jack, our Elf on the Shelf; the pride when they finally got the courage to talk directly to Santa at the mall; the can’t-contain-it bubble-busting excitement of Christmas morning. Christmas makes me feel like we do a good job at creating a fun childhood for the kids. It makes me feel like a magician.
Magic rocks. I want to be good at magic all year long, to keep a steady stream of magic in my kids’ lives. I have to admit, though, that unless magic comes wrapped in a box with instructions, it doesn’t come naturally to me. I can do crafts. I can sing and dance. But magic? Wow. Where is Snoopy Jack when I need him?
But I discovered a secret. I don’t have to be good at magic all the time. My kids were born magical. They know how to create and sustain magic, and they are patiently teaching us. .
Have you heard of doodle bears? They’re colorful little bears that kids can draw on. My daughter really got hooked on them a few months ago. She likes to get on the Fisher Price website and play the games on there. One is a Doodle Bear game where you can play like you’re doodling (coloring) on the bear. She had heard that if you click on things on the Internet, you’ll order them and they’ll send them do you. After playing the game online one day she told us, very proudly, that she had ordered a doodle bear! In fact, she told everybody she could! It was adorable. She was so excited that she had done that all by herself, and every day on the way home from daycare she’d say – I hope my doodle bear gets here today!
I really struggled. Do I tell her that she only clicked on a picture and that she won’t get the bear in the mail? Should I take this opportunity to teach my 4-year-old a rough life lesson that the internet isn’t magic? That you don’t get everything you want, or click on? Tough break, kid?
Not this time. I leaned into the curve and made the rather immature but magical decision to order the bear so it would appear on the doorstep when we got home. As it happened, my husband was the master of ceremonies for that moment. He made sure to call me so I could hear her reaction through the cell phone.
It was pure magic.
The other morning, we woke up and it was still dark out. She did her ‘job’ of letting the dogs outside and gasped when the light lit up the back porch. “Mom!” she cried. “Come look! Glitter! Sparkles! It was Periwinkle!” (We had just watched the newest Tinkerbell movie. Periwinkle is Tinkerbell’s sister, a winter fairy.) “Wow! I bet you’re right!” I said. “And look!” she said, finding a white fluff of cotton on the floor, “The owls left us a present when they brought the frost!”
Magic moments happen more than we realize. It’s our challenge, I believe, as parents to have our eyes, ears and eyes open, tuned in for the chance to create or reinforce magic. In the dance of childhood, we are following our daughter’s magical lead… and soon enough, our son’s. She starts the dance, we take the cues and follow in step. While I plan to do a better job at learning to lead, perhaps the real magic here is that she is teaching me, drawing me into her world, and through her I’m learning to experience the magic that is in the world all year long.
About Mary Beth Cox
