Keeping Up with Joy

Joy is hula-hooping now, and she is very good at it.

At first, she didn’t quite get the hang of it. The hoop would go around her waist maybe one or two times, then drop to the ground. But she simply would not give up. She watched her sister doing it and decided, in the determined way Joy does, I want to do what Sister can do. And so she kept trying.

Now she’s got it. Those little hips really go.

Watching her learn has been a reminder of how much can be accomplished when someone refuses to be discouraged. Joy did not stop to wonder whether she had natural talent. She did not whine about how hard it was. She just kept at it until the thing that looked impossible (to me) started to look easy.

So I’m inspired. I may have to get an adult-size hoop and see whether I can keep up.

In the meantime, I’ve taken up running. I started in October, and my times are getting better. I recently ran a 5K in 34.5 minutes, which felt like a real achievement for me. Part of the reason I’ve stuck with running is that it’s fun. Part of it is that it’s great exercise. And part of it is pure necessity.

Joy likes to take off from the front yard and sprint down the street with no concern whatsoever for cars, dogs, or my increasingly urgent insistence that she stop. She just laughs and keeps running. So someone in this family needs to be able to run an eleven-minute mile.

At the moment, that someone is me. And more than once I have had to catch her and carry her home.

Between Joy hula-hooping and Joy bolting down the street, she has become both my inspiration and my conditioning program. She is a reminder that hard work and determination can pay off.

A seven-year-old can become an expert hula-hooper. And a sixty-four-year-old can train to run faster than a seven-year-old.

Joy sees something she wants to do, and she does it.

I see Joy in the distance, and I run to catch her.

It’s beautiful, really. One of us is running straight toward joy. The other is running straight toward Joy before she reaches the corner. For now, that seems to amount to the same thing.

Home. Sick.

Joy has been sick for over a week—home from school, bundled in blankets, moving slowly through her days. I thought I was immune. I had the flu shot. The COVID shot. Daily vitamin C. I figured I was covered.

For eight days, I’ve wiped her nose, cleaned up her vomit, spiked her orange juice with liquid acetaminophen, and let her kiss me anyway. And I felt fine.

Today, I’m not so fine.

But that’s life with a first-grader.

Even when she was clearly feeling awful, she still wanted to do alphabet puzzles the moment she woke up. We do them every morning. It’s our routine. If I make a mistake—like putting the letter V in the A slot—Joy simply picks it up, places it where it belongs, and moves on. She never scolds me. She never comments. She understands that mistakes happen.

I love that about her.

After puzzles, we play with the volleyball. Then it’s Cheerios and orange juice, though her appetite hasn’t been quite the same.

When we lie down for nap, she tickles my toes for five whole minutes. She does most of the giggling.

Tomorrow, she’ll likely go back to school. I’ll probably crawl back into bed at 8:22, right after she gets on the bus, grateful for the extra sleep.

But I’ll carry the week with me.

The puzzles and the volleyball. The Cheerios and orange juice. The way she fixes my mistakes without a word, as if kindness is the most natural thing in the world. The sound of her laughter when she tickles my toes, joyful and unrestrained.

These days don’t last forever. Neither does the sickness.

What remains is the knowing—that even in the small, uncomfortable stretches of life, there is so much love. Enough to fill a week at home. Enough to carry us both forward.

Joy’s “Good Side”

Joy loves kindergarten. In the morning, as we get ready for the bus, making lunch and packing her backpack, Joy gets visibly excited. And during the week, we get many pictures from her teachers at school. Joy is clearly having a blast at school and learning so much. But she is super tired when she gets off the bus at 4:40. She often wants an afterschool snack and play time or a bike ride. And we do dinner early because by 7 pm, she is ready to go to bed.

Joy will come into the kitchen, where I’m often reading or working, turn off the kitchen and dining room lights, and then gesture to me (or Mom) with her hand. We don’t need words to understand her. She is ready.

I put down my book or close the laptop, make a cup of ice water, and follow Joy down the hall. Joy brushes her teeth (with some assistance) and we change into pajamas. She hops into bed, and I give her the water. She takes two or three sips and lies down, pulling the covers up to her chin. I dim the lights.

I lie down on Joy’s left, letting Joy rest her head on my right arm. She puts her right hand in mine, and she rolls her head back and forth until she’s comfortable. She turns to me and gets as close as possible, snuggling and putting her leg on my leg. She believes that this snuggle hold is rock solid, that there is no way I can escape. And of course I don’t want to escape. I live for this.

When she is held, Joy often falls asleep within minutes. And the smell of her hair can make me sleepy as well. I might nap for thirty minutes or so like this. Then, if I’m careful and gentle, I can extract myself from her embrace. If she starts to wake up and I’m not in the snuggle position, she will whine for a few seconds until I resume the snuggle hold. Soon, though, she is back in deep sleep.

So Joy almost always places her head on my right arm. But yesterday, she lay down in my spot. So I climbed over her and placed her head on my left arm. And I looked at her as she snuggled into me. And I noticed how really beautiful her eyelashes are. And those cheeks. And so I wondered if this change in perspective had something to do with me rediscovering Joy’s beautiful features.

It was odd. I mean, Joy’s face is symmetrical. Her eyelashes are mostly identical on each side. Cheeks too. Her smile is joyous and wonderful from every angle. Her hair is soft and shiny. (However, there is some research that demonstrates that the left side of the face shows more emotional expression. The left side is often considered our “good side.”)

So I’ve decided to look at her from different angles. Every day. I want to commit to memory as much as I can about what Joy is like at age five. And six. And seven. And since my memory is getting slippery, I want to take more photos and videos.

And someone needs to take pictures of her mom and me. Because someday, she might ask, “Who loved me the most in the world?”