Dandelion Wishes

I happen to celebrate my anniversary right around the same weekend as Mother’s Day.  This year being our fifteenth my husband sent me a beautiful arrangement of flowers, a total surprise as often if there are flowers in my house it’s because my youngest, the lover of all things she finds pretty, usually asks him to buy some for Mommy.  

While my bouquet sits on my dining room table and I smile when I read the note he sent, or stop to smell the daisies, she notices.  And then I continue doing my mom duties.  I pack the school lunches, trying to create something more exciting in the new gluten-free way along with trying to estimate how much food my middle girl eats.  I know she always seems ravenous here, so clearly the amount of food I pack is not quite enough.  We need breakfast, lunch one and lunch two.  

I look at my growing pile of laundry as I skipped two days while running a garage sale solo and daring to have dinner out with my husband while my oldest babysat.  Somehow laundry multiplies faster than bunnies in my house and I walk past the clutter that is driving me crazy to go set up the sale again.

And my youngest joins me in the free spirited play only a child can manage running up to me with a bouquet of dandelions.  Some are still yellow flowers, some white feathery seedlings ready to blow away in the wind.  I genuinely smile as one must do with a fistful of dandelions as I have every single time I have filled a plastic cup of water to host those dandelions on my table.  

I ask her to make a wish.  “What?” She asks, blue eyes questioning me.  After all, wishes are for shooting stars and birthday cakes.  And I remind her they are for dandelion seeds that transport fairies to the dwelling where Tinkerbell and the others wait for a baby’s first laugh and a fairy to be born.

I put my finger to her lips as she’s about to tell me her wish and say “It’s a secret.  Only you know what you wish for,” and she runs off in her muddy rain boots to blow her magical dandelion dust onto our recently fertilized lawn.  

She comes back and tackles me in one of her hugs and says proudly “I made my wish, Mommy!  I wish for you to always be happy.”

As selfless as this wish seems I wonder how much she sees.  And I vow to remember every time I see a dandelion what one little girl wishes for her mommy.  And to remember to stop adulting once in awhile, to stop worrying and just smile and love.

After all, that’s what dandelion wishes are for.