Captivated

I overhear her urging her friend, "Ask your mom if you can stay for dinner.
My mom is a really really good cook!"
I smile (I'm popping a frozen pizza in the oven). It's just a box pizza, I say.
She sidles up beside me conspiratorially.
"That's ok - you really really are a good cook."
Later, reading a bedtime story and tucking her in, I thank her for the compliment.
And she tells me then that when she grows up she wants to be just like me.
My shortcomings are hovering in the shadows of those words,
when she breaks into my maternal terrors with this;
"You are kind and you always help me,
unless you are teaching me to do it myself, but then you watch.
You are a good dancer. I'm a better singer though.
And you pray my bad dreams away and you have a lot of good ideas.
You are the best mommy ever!"
She asks if we can cook something together tomorrow,
and we do.
The image of her, aproned and cracking her first eggs into the bowl
is already in my scrapbooked heart.
Husband/Papa saw it too, this snapshot of grace.
We share the good of it in one delightful moment.
Good thing, cause I completely forgot my camera.
Life makes it's demands of us, but oh, it is so very full of magnificence.