Lord, Bless the Mothers of Toddlers - Nana's Prayer
My daughter called me at noon yesterday.
I could tell by the tone of her voice before she said a single word that the morning had been something. Not a bad something necessarily. More of a Lord have mercy and also where is the wine something.
"Mom," she said.
Just mom. The way she says it when she needs me to brace myself.
"Tell me," I said.
And she did.
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My granddaughter Lyla turned two recently. Two years old. She weighs approximately twenty-eight pounds and has the energy output of a small industrial generator. She is beautiful and funny and absolutely fearless and she woke up yesterday at 9:00 in the morning which my daughter thought was a gift from God.
It was not a gift from God.
It was God giving Lyla extra time to plan.
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By noon — three hours after waking up — here is what this child had accomplished:
She ate a marker. Not drew with it. Ate it.
She drew on the carpet in her bedroom. Apparently the marker survived the eating.
She found a bottle of lotion and distributed it across the floor in what I can only assume
was an interpretive art installation.
She went into the pantry, selected a box of cereal with intention, carried it outside to the patio, poured it out, and sat down to eat breakfast al fresco like a tiny French woman on holiday.
She then slipped into the garage undetected. My daughter searched the house before locating her. Lyla, for her part, seemed to feel this was a completely normal Tuesday.
She found the dog shampoo and poured it into the dog's water bowl. The dog has opinions about this that have not yet been fully expressed.
And just when my daughter thought — just when she dared to believe — that the morning was settling down, she found Lyla on the couch.
In her makeup.
Full face. All of it. Applied with the confidence of a woman who has been doing this for years and the precision of someone who absolutely has not.
And just when my daughter thought the makeup was the finale — that surely this was the conclusion of the morning's events — she found the purse.
Lyla had pulled out every single piece of gum her mother owned. She did not unwrap a single one. Not one. She simply put her teeth into each piece, confirmed it existed, and moved on.
Quality control. The girl has standards.
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My daughter finished the list and there was a silence on the phone that I recognized. It was the silence of a woman who loves her child more than anything in this world and is also completely beside herself.
She was laughing. She was exhausted. She had gone so far past tears that she had looped back around to something that resembled peace but was probably just shock.
"Mom," she said again.
And I laughed. I laughed from somewhere deep and real because I have been her. I have stood in that kitchen, in that chaos, in that moment where you look around at everything your child has dismantled and you think — what is happening and also who authorized this.
"She is exploring," I told her.
There was a pause.
"Exploring," my daughter repeated.
"She is learning about her world," I said. "She is curious and creative and she is figuring out how everything works. The cereal. The lotion. The makeup. She just wants to know."
Another pause.
"She poured dog shampoo in the dog bowl, Mom."
"She was probably trying to help," I said.
I heard my daughter laugh — really laugh this time, the kind that comes from the belly — and something released in the conversation. The weight of the morning lifted just a little. Not because anything changed. The lotion was still on the floor. The carpet still had marker on it. The dog still had opinions.
But sometimes you just need your mama to tell you that your child is not a chaos agent. She is an explorer. And explorers are going to make a mess on their way to figuring out the world.
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Here is what I know about Lyla at two years old:
She is not trying to make anyone's life harder. She woke up that morning full of wonder and went looking for it everywhere she could find it. In the pantry. In the lotion bottle. In the garage where apparently something interesting was happening. In her mama's makeup bag where she found color and shimmer and decided she deserved all of it. In every single piece of gum which she inspected thoroughly and returned without complaint.
She is two. The whole world is new to her. Everything is a question she is trying to answer with her hands.
And yes — the answers involve marker on the carpet and cereal on the patio and dog shampoo in the water bowl and teeth marks in every piece of gum in the purse. That is the price of raising a child who is not afraid to reach for things.
I will take that price every single time.
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To my daughter — who called me at noon sounding like a woman who had already lived three full days before lunch — I see you. I was you. And I promise you that one day Lyla is going to be sitting somewhere laughing about the morning she poured the cereal on the patio and ate it like it was perfectly normal.
And you are going to be so proud of her curiosity. Of her fearlessness. Of the way she has always just gone for it without apology.
The mess is temporary. The spirit that made it is forever.
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To every mama of a toddler reading this — hang on. Get your coffee. Find one person who will laugh with you instead of at you. And remember that God specifically designed children to be born not knowing anything so that we would have the profound privilege of watching them figure it all out.
Even when figuring it all out involves the dog shampoo.
Bless you, Lyla. Nana thinks you are doing amazing.
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With grace and a whole lot of laughter,
Grace Lantern 🕯️
Does your toddler have a PhD in chaos? You are in the right place. Come sit down. Grace Lantern has coffee and zero judgment.
