Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

A Stitch in Time

by Sara Peterson-Davis

It’s a little piece of happiness and it’s on my cell phone.

It reminds me that happiness is sometimes scattered around us in little fragments. It’s up to us to look for them, gather them up, examine them carefully and arrange them just so.

My cell phone is a constant source of obsession for my kids. They can’t keep their hands off it. They change my ringtones, my wallpaper, calculate tips for imaginary meals and check the time in every major city from Chicago to Sydney.

So, when I saw the picture on my phone’s screen move I was more confused than surprised. I didn’t know my phone could do that.

I looked again and the picture wasn’t moving anymore. All I could see was my 9-year-old’s smiling face smooshed up against the inside of the screen. I opened it again and there she was smiling into the camera saying “You’re awesome, Mom! You’re so cool!”

I flipped open my phone three more times to watch it again. I watched not so much to hear about what a great mom I am, but to get a good look at my daughter again in that moment.

The first time I got a good look at her was when they’d finally left us alone together in the hospital room after she was born. At that moment I had a slight panic attack. It hit me that I was the mother of a little girl, and that I knew very little about being a little girl. Growing up I had been a tomboy. I never played with dolls, never put ribbons in my hair and only wore dresses under court order.

Now, I sat with someone that was looking to me to show her how to do all those things, and I was clueless.

Lucky for me, Brynne turned out to be a good sport. She wrote me a pass when I couldn’t play baby dolls for more than five minutes without making snarky remarks. She sat patiently and stoically as I worked out the kinks in my hair braiding techniques, and politely excused me from hairstyling duties altogether after a particularly ugly barrette incident. And she has forged her own unique style based on the fact that her mother is no fashion role model whatsoever.

To hear from this little girl with the laughing eyes and the ornery smile that I have gotten it at least partially right is one of those little bits of happiness. I look at it every day and smile knowing she won’t always think I’m so awesome and cool. It’s a real possibility that I won’t even rate mediocre when she hits her teen years.

So, I’ll keep gathering up those little bits and pieces, and string them all together, because by my calculations I may not be awesome or cool again until 2025.

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