I wrote a portrait of Lila just before her fifth birthday, too. We had just arrived in Salta, and our future in Argentina lay open ahead of us without a single detail in place. Would we stay? Would we be happy?
Now, Lila’s tenth birthday is here, and the pieces of those years have puzzled into place forming a history that seems it could not have ever been otherwise.
Then, Lila loved her blue nail polish. She doesn’t wear it much anymore. “It’s against school rules,” so she says, but I think it’s more because an errant tomboyishness has taken over. She’d rather run through puddles and smack sticks together. She cares not that her nails are dirty.
At the beginning, we parents guide every aspect of our babies’ lives. We choose where they sleep, what they eat, what they wear. The older Lila gets, the less control I have over her, and this is is exactly as it should be. Parenting is a continual process of separation from the moment of birth.
Her friends advise her now, too, and Lila struggles to decide what’s true and what’s not. That girl who tells her every couple weeks that she doesn’t like her anymore and sends Lila home crying? “She’s not worth your time,” I tell Lila. The one who informs her that once our new baby arrives, we’ll forget her, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Ultimately, Lila makes her own choices and learns from her own experience, regardless of what I say.
My Lila, she is an endless parade of questions.
Why do words mean what they do? How do people learn to speak different languages? Why does baking soda bubble up like that? What happens after death? Is Bob Dylan dead? What about Elvis?
We still tuck her under the covers at bedtime every night and play a game called Daddy-Know-It-All. She asks three questions; we answer. Some questions are historical. Others, scientific. Sometimes, I can’t answer, because even Google can’t read the future.
“How will our lives change when the new baby comes?” she asks. Lila worries we’ll forget all about her. I assure her that will never happen, not in a million years. Yes, a new baby in the house means new rules, and we will figure it out together. “You have to trust me on this one,” I tell her, and she does.
This is the little girl who once told me s she won’t be going to college, because she wants to stay with us forever. She later revised her plan to have us to move to wherever she plans to go to college. I don’t bother telling her she may realize she wants to travel instead of college. Or do something I haven’t yet even imagined.
Lila lies to avoid anything she thinks might get her in trouble. She is a horrible liar, though, like her father. I assume her skill will improve.
She runs to our bedroom, curls under the covers with us when a loud thunderclap wakes her in the middle of the night. We listen to the rain together and count the seconds between thunder and lightening. As the time lengthens, the storm moves away.
I know she worries about loss, about separation about developing her own space in this world.
She writes lovely sweet notes for the baby and has written an entire book of her feelings and experiences for her soon to be little brother. “I’ve wanted a brother or sister since I was a little girl,” she informs me.
She also rolls her eyes and gives me attitude. This is new.
Everything is a stage in childhood. Everything is a working out of emotions, questions, interactions and then moving onto the next thing. I have ten years of practice letting go with Lila, and now, we start all over with a new little one.
There is only so much credit you can take for the person your child becomes, yet when I look at Lila I see a strong, sensitive, creative person who doesn’t want to be told what to do and has amazing taste in music. I’d like to believe I had something to do with it.
When I look at Lila, I am still very much in love with the little baby I held all night long the first week of her life. Ten years ago, I met this seven pound creature who is now a real, live breathing, thinking human being with opinions, loves and aches.
Soon, we start again as a family of four (nine if you include the pets). Deep breath and jump over the edge again.
