Feet
It was probably 6 a.m. when we heard their little feet running down the hall that morning. Six feet. Three pairs. Our three daughters.
We were parents.
“We’re parents,” Brandon said.
Silence. Blinking.
“They’re probably hungry,” I said.
We looked at each other, tired but wide-eyed.
This wasn’t the first time they had spent the night at our house, but after a four-month transition from their foster mom’s home into ours, it was the first morning they were with us full-time.
May 1st. A new beginning.
I made them eggs that morning. I remember standing there pushing the yellow yolks around, scrambling them in the pan because I’d forgotten to scramble them in a bowl first. I was singing to myself to try to calm my nerves. You’re a mom, I thought. It’s official. You’re a mom. This is crazy.
If I was this nervous about our first official day as a family, how must they have felt?
A couple months before, they had already started calling us Mom and Dad. Our middle daughter – with a huge heart – was the one to tentatively say it first on the day we told them we were going to be their forever family. She came up to me, looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, “Mama?”
Swallowing, I said, “Yes, honey. I’m your mama.”
And she wrapped her little arms around my legs.
We were parents.
Still pushing the eggs around that morning, I belatedly remembered that my oldest daughter didn’t like scrambled eggs. Panicking, I slid them onto a plate and broke another two eggs into the pan to fry them over-easy. She would’ve eaten them either way, but at this point, I was determined for them to like me. As determined as they probably were for me to like them.
They shuffled into the kitchen in a pack – always in a pack – and sat down quietly and stiffly at the table. Their hearts were probably pounding, fingers probably twisting into knots in their laps. This was it, and we all knew it. No more transition. No more of this whole thing just being about fun weekends at our house. I was their mother. Brandon was their father. They were our baby girls.
I overcooked the eggs, of course. The girls would soon come to know that I overcook everything. Best to break them in early, I guess. I brought everything over to the table and clumsily set out their plates. I must’ve been talking with them this whole time, but I don’t remember what was said. Maybe a couple of our new family sayings:
“Why do people only say I love you when they’re leaving or saying goodnight?” my youngest daughter had asked me once when we were watching a movie.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“We should say it all the time. Like in mornings,” she pointed out.
“We should. Good morning! I love you!” I tickled her.
She laughed. “Hi! How are you? I love you!”
And so it began.
I’m sure I said it that morning, because we always did. “Good morning! I love you!” I’m sure I had a big smile fixed on my face because one mom told me to “fake it till you make it” with kids. I’m sure they smiled back and said they slept well, not remembering all the times they were up in the night crying because their little lives had just changed forever. Again.
They ate their overcooked eggs on the plates I’d bought them with those separators – although now I think they were too old for plates like that. I didn’t know. And they didn’t complain. Maybe it helped us get back a slice of time we had all missed out on together – toddler years.
I’m not sure where Brandon was during all of this. Maybe he was getting dressed or showering. But the second he came into the kitchen, he filled it like he always fills things – with light. He picked up my dried-egg spatula and announced, “Hello, kids. I am Mr. Spatula,” in a ridiculously real Russian accent, and had us all laughing like we’d been a family since the beginning.
It’s four years later now. This morning, we woke to the sound of laughter.
…And their little feet – not so little anymore – running happily, comfortably, down the hall.
“For this I will praise You, O LORD, among the nations...” Psalm 18:49