Something my mom taught all of us kids (she has four girls and two boys) at a very early age was the small magic of unconditional love.
Now, let’s define with that means in our family. That doesn’t mean that we don’t get scolded, sent to our rooms or spanked with a paddle from a paddleball game ( her favorite weapon of choice ) when we deserved it. What that does mean is that she was strict with us but fair and we always knew she loved us, no matter what.
Paddle ball in action
Let me give you a small example: my sisters and I shared two rooms among four girls, so you can imagine how “painful” that may have been for us. Well, it was just that much more painful for my mother.
Occasionally, as young girls, our rooms might have gotten a little out of control messy. It happens. My mom’s solution for this was to come into our rooms and use her arm as a tool to knock everything off our dressers. For some reason, I always remember this in slow motion. It was maybe a little dramatic, but it got our attention. ( Side note: I may or may not have done this to a past girlfriend of mine who was prone to leaving stacks of mail, papers, etc. on the table by the front door).
After this incident, mom went back about her day, not as if nothing had happened but as if this was a normal part of her routine. Make breakfast, take the girls to school, do laundry, pick the girls up, wreak havoc, make dinner. AND the underlying theme was always LOVE. We knew this. She was the safe place to land for us. No matter what we did wrong, we always knew we were loved and cared for.
To this day, we know that occasionally, we still want our mommy, because she was always there. NOT to tell us everything would be OK, because that wasn’t always the truth BUT to show us that we would/could make it through anything.
I put it this way:
We fight hard, we live loud, and we love big.
#SmallMagic indeed.
