Super Girl

We went on a family vacation last week.

There were many parts to it: driving to Des Moines, where Matt had a conference to attend. Sam and Ellie and I spent a day and half exploring the city. We went to the zoo and to the science center, swam in the hotel pool, and stuffed ourselves silly with good food.

From there, we flew to New Jersey to visit Matt's family. The flight to NJ was uneventful and wonderful. Our kids really are great travelers.

In New Jersey, we took an overnight trip up to Massachusetts to visit Matt's brother and family, and we took a day trip into New York City. Also great trips. Seriously. Our kids are great travelers.

The night before we flew back to Iowa, we gave the kids a bath and changed them in to pajamas before Matt's grandmother ("GG," to the kids) came over for quick goodbye visit and playtime with Sam and Ellie. Earlier in the week, Ellie had received the gift of a superhero cape and crown, which she wore around this entire evening.

We scrambled to take pictures of her as she flitted about, one of her pigtails trapped down by the headpiece, the other one sticking out the top.

They were just a couple of pictures. Really. They weren't supposed to mean anything in particular.

And yet...

These superhero pictures of Ellie are everything to me right now.

Ellie is a two-year old. She is feisty, silly, dramatic, independent, stubborn, smart, sweet, and demanding. I love her fiercely, now. And I love, fiercely, the person she will grow up to be.

Ellie is two years old and she is leaning hard into doing what two-year-olds do best: tantruming. She loved vacation, but also gave us a daily fists-pounding, head-banging, throw-herself-to-the-floor, shriek-and-scream tantrum while we were away. Some of them were short and INSANELY loud. Others were painfully long. Such is life with a feisty toddler out of her routine.

We packed up her cape and crown that night, as we packed our suitcases and prepared to head home.

We loaded ourselves into the car the next morning, got ourselves to the airport, and onto the plane, and it was at that moment that Ellie, who'd been happy throughout the whole airport, panicked about being put into her seat on the plane, threw an epic (and scary) tantrum, where we as parents were helpless to calm her down (not even cookies and gummy bears would help), and where we were legitimately worried about Ellie hurting herself. Put that together with an exceptionally unhelpful and unkind flight attendant (that's a story for another time), and lo and behold, we found ourselves leaving the plane, regrouping, spending an extra night in New Jersey, and flying home (take two) the next day.

I had this moment, as we were eating a picnic lunch at our gate while trying to rebook our flight, where I looked at Ellie and realized that, for as miserable as her tantrums might make us, that she was the most miserable out of all of us. There she was, taking apart a ham and cheese sandwich to eat only the ham and cheese, her eyes sunken from crying, her face scratched from her flailing limbs, her tiny body exhausted and dazed from the effort. And I wasn't mad at her. Or upset about having to wait another day to fly. I simply wanted to make everything okay for her. I wanted to protect her. I wanted her to know, no matter what anybody said or thought, that she is a superhero.

Just like that, those pictures took on a new life.

When I see them, I see my strong, sweet girl. I see the stubborn girl who is going to conquer anything, the determined girl who won't let anyone or anything get in her way. I see a girl who might look like a handful to you, but a girl who is all capes and stars and crowns to me.

I don't have the superpower of diffusing her tantrums when they come, and let me say, definitively, that her tantrums aren't a matter of parenting or discipline, nor is there any way to wrestle her out of them. So my new superpowers are patience, waiting out the emotions that so desperately need expression. And wisdom, to keep her rested and well-fed and hydrated and feeling secure and loved, that we keep as even a keel as possible. Also creativity, and resilience, and thick skin, and definitely a sense of humor. These are my mom super-powers right now.

This girl is nothing other than super. And so these pictures - these random, just-for-fun pictures - are now what I cling to, for my sake and for Ellie's, because they speak a sweet and defiant truth into the world: She is small. She is fierce. She is loved. She is my Ellie-belly. And she is super.