Dolls

This picture doesn't begin to convey the unspeakable depths of what looking at it makes me feel. Oh, the vastness of a mother's love for her child! It is impossible to put into words - but something about the expression on her face makes me want to try.

She has begun to exhibit a natural preference for dolls. She finds them under the sink of the toy kitchen or hidden away at the bottom of a basket and clutches them to her chest or nestles them comfortably under one arm, waddling all over the house. Today it was Snow White - the faded and many-times-washed princess that we are "borrowing" from Katie-Kat. Evangeline found her beneath the coverlet in Audrey's bedroom. She carried her down the hall, patting her back and jabbering to her as she toddled from room to room. Audrey wasn't nearly as interested in dolls at this age; and I couldn't help but be surprisingly moved at seeing such a little person behave toward a stuffed piece of fabric and ribbon in such a seemingly grown-up way - treating it with such tenderness and affection!

But a moment later, the tides turned. Audrey tried to wrench the thing from Evangeline's hands and all of us were given a spontaneous lesson in tenacity. Evie may be smaller than her sister but, like many a second or third-born child, she has discovered - and much to my chagrin - that what she lacks in size and strength she can easily make up for in lung capacity.