Every time we return from a long hospital stay it takes a good week to get back into our normal routine. For Eliza that means helping her understand that she doesn’t have to wake up every hour on the hour during the night and that she can’t lay on the couch all day and watch Frozen on a loop, although she would love that. It’s hard to communicate these things to Eliza. I can’t just say “we only do that in the hospital” she doesn’t really get it. So I search for little glimpses that she understands what we are saying and we muddle through and try and get back to real life…

and we wait for butterfly moments…

I can’t remember ever experiencing a “butterfly moment” (a term coined by a good friend for me) until 4 years ago when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Eliza was five months old when I found the lump. That first month was so scary. Scans, doctors appointments, waiting for results and all the while trying to navigate being a new mama. During my final scan they were checking to see if the cancer was anywhere else in my body and I was losing it. I was laying in that machine terrified. Would they find more cancer? Would I die and leave my baby? Every terrible thought you can think of I was thinking. In the MRI they have a little mirror over your head so you can look up and out the window in the room. The view was the parking lot, not the best but it would have to do. So I stared out and prayed. I prayed desperately the same thing over and over “please God help me, I can’t do this, let me know you are here.”  As I was praying I was searching the sky (like I was searching through Target just last week). Maybe my sign would be in the clouds or in the little glimpse of trees in the distance.  And then a little white butterfly floated past the window. It was my sign, I knew it, and so I said out loud “can I see it one more time God” and the little butterfly made one last appearance. That little white butterfly changed me that day.

I continue to have butterfly moments, they are not always butterflies but they are moments where I just know.

A few nights ago Eliza woke up saying “mama, mama” so I climbed out of bed, sighed loudly (to see if maybe Aaron would get up instead…no such luck) and headed into her room. When I opened the door she said “hi” and she laid back down. This is her way of telling me to lay down with her. We laid together and I could tell she wanted to chat during this late night visit. She was saying all of her “go to” words. Hi, rock, head, meow, dog, blue. It was actually making me smile. Eliza is great at reciting words that she knows, sometimes they are in the right context and sometimes they aren’t, we cheer for her either way. She will repeat words when we ask her and sometimes little phrases with big pauses in between each word. I always wonder if she knows what she is saying…

But on this night, when we were both finally drifting off to sleep I whispered ” I love you Eliza” and in the sweetest little voice she whispered back ” I…. wah…. youuuuu” and I know she meant it.

It was our butterfly moment.

| Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  ~Mark 11:24 |