So she will know me

In Verona a few weeks ago

I read an article in the Deseret News yesterday. Someone had linked it on Facebook (dear Lil' Lou—or rather Big Lou now I suppose—I challenge you to another week of Facebook fasting?) so I clicked it and ironically read it as Ada toddled around by herself playing with cups and crayons and this pink basket that is a quasi-permanent fixture on her head these days.

I thought it had a few nice things to say, but probably took far too many words to say them. It felt a bit manipulative and overstated for my taste. I thought back on the last nearly nine months of my life and realized that I've hardly used my phone at all (the beauty of knowing only a handful of people and not feeling brave enough to talk to three-quarters of them over the phone in a foreign language). It's much more Ada's phone than mine these days anyhow. But the article did make me think about my screen time in general. Naturally, it made me think about blogging.

A big reason I blog is so my daughter will know me. So she'll have some pieces of my writing, links to pop culture or articles I found fascinating, photos of things I thought beautiful, and be able to piece it all together and think, "My mother was a human with a heart and a brain and a spirit." But is that really the best way to help her know these things about me? And isn't it a bit presumptuous to think that she will care enough to read any of it anyway? (Though if she is anything like me, she'll be hounding her grandfather for years about getting a copy of that great-grandmother's journal he promised . . . ahem . . . Grandpa?)

Blogging and journaling can help our kids know us, certainly, but I have hardly read any of my mom's written thoughts. Regardless, I know the kind of woman she is anyway; the hardworking, forgiving, hearted, brained, spirited mama that still amazes me. I know her because I grew up at her side, spending summers together, talking in the car, singing to the piano, and even learning in the middle row of numerous math classes.

So while I'm sure the distractions will only mount as we take on more back in The States, I hope that I can give Ada indisputable truths about who I am by the experiences we share together and the observations she makes herself. As well as snippets of my inner-workings as I work them out in writing, of course.