Yesterday Sunny and I ventured to the DJ park with her friends Teddy and Fia and Corey.
Looking at the other children play with the toys, standing up, and pushing the buttons, seeing who gets to ride which train; I was struck watching Sunny play by the frogs foot with hundreds of leaves in her own world. My friend Courtney remarked how maybe one day Sunny would grow up to be a scientist.
I have thought of Sunny as many things on various occasions. When I was pregnant with her I imagined this sassy little ballerina. I imagined a girly girl who carried a purse and sang songs loudly and could throw a tantrum that would outdo all of the other tantrums in the world. I imagined a pageant child, who would one day practice dance in NYC, and study cooking at the French Institute and spend long lunches entertaining me and her uncles with stories of her incredible successes in the arts. However, I could have never imagined my Sunny.
My girl is something so much more special than the limited vision I once assigned to her. She is in fact thoughtful and selfless. She is poised and studied, soft and content. She is curious and a natural explorer. She is more Columbia than NYU, more Hepburn than Monroe, more Oak tree than Willow, more Willoughby than Statham.
So when Courtney suggested that one day she might spend her working time in a lab I thought to myself, yes she might. She like her Grandfather might become a rocket scientist, or like her aunts a doctor or a special ed teacher, or like her father a therapist and leader. I hope, somewhere under all that Matt there is a little bit of me. I see it when she starts to dance the second she hears any music (random tv commercials included). I see me in Sunny when she has the slightest injury and looks immediately for a shoulder to lean on. I see it when she screams at the top of her lungs for no reason at all, and when she is afraid to get down when she has climbed higher than she meant to. I see a little bit of me in her laughter, the way she holds her face when she doesn't understand something, and in her insatiable appetite. I see the me in her, when she giggles at strangers, stays in the corner with one really really good friend and seems to talk their ear off.
I don't know who Sunny will be or what she will choose to become, in truth as long as she's happy it doesn't matter to me. It is though, amazing to see Gods work on display. I have not done everything in this life correctly but I can with all certainty tell you that this portion of my life is my favorite so far and my own evolution is attributed to my daughters existence.
So if you do one day become a scientist my Sunshine then be the best little scientist there ever was, but don't ever deprive yourself of this part. I can tell you now, that this part is the best part. You are really, truly, just incredible.
