Rituals

My Cookie has grown so big, and I haven’t written anything here in such a long time. She can now read some words (like stop, no, mana, etc.) and she can do simple math. Sometimes I look at her and she’s so adult-like that it scares me. She’s five. Her notions of fairness and consistency are impeccable.

For a while we’ve had a ritual. We used to quantify our love for each other, and we’d say “I love you as big as the ocean”, or “as big as the freeway”, and we’d compete to see who loved the other more. Silly, but it brought warmth to my heart. Then I told her we should find a simpler pattern, where one person would say “I love you”, the other would answer “I love you more”, and the first one would finalize with “I love you most”. Nowadays Cookie just jumps to “I love you most” whenever she remembers it, and we’ve included “you’re most beautiful, most smart, most fashion”, and her latest addition, “most cutie”.

I think the idea originated from a book we read sometimes called “How Do I Love You?” which quantifies and qualifies a person’s love for another (presumably the mom’s love for her daughter). Then I guess we just got creative.

Another ritual of ours is that every night, just before one of us falls asleep, we say “good night, sleep with God and dream of little angels”. The other says “Amen”, and repeats the same wishes back. Now mom (the tag-along that she is) has joined in too.

It’s incredible how simple rituals can be rewarding.

p.s. Mana loves you, Cookie. ;)