Sunburst Pink

There are moments we all wait for as we raise our children. Some, we may be aware of before our children are even born. Steve has been longing for the day he first takes Alex on the golf course since his debut on this earth. Others, surprise us with a wave of joy and maybe remembrance of our own childhood's when they arrive.

So it was on my bathroom floor this weekend.

I painted Cate's toenails. The teeny, tiny specks that they are now boast a fuschia-glow, just like my own. I promise her ears won't be pierced until she is at least eight or nine or ten, but I just couldn't resist a drop of color on her little feet.

It was a girls' morning. Steve and Alex left early in a swirl of grown-up importance, for the driving range. Cate and I stayed home. We watered flowers, we did dishes, we folded laundry. The relative quietness of the house begged for a little indulgence and I decided to address my long neglected toenails... it is summer, afterall. My curious shadow watched with great interest. "My toe," she said. That was all it took.

I carefully dipped the brush into the bottle. The bristles looked enormous, twice the length, at least of the largest little nail. Carefully, I applied a fraction of a drop. "Wet. No touch," I said. She repeated and blew with exaggerated lips on the tiny nail. It sounds silly. Overstated. But it felt like a ritual as old as the hills. An intimate mother-daughter moment. The precursor to styling her hair for the prom, arranging her veil before she walks down the aisle. The bond of women runs deep. It covers love and birth and mothering and sickness and death - the biggies. But it is also rooted in these rituals of care. Ask Steve. If I have spent one hour discussing the challenges of unruly, curly hair with my friend Julie, I have spent a million. It blows the mind of the man. For someone who shutters before answering the phone because he just hates to talk on it, it is staggering to his imagination that 42 minutes can be spent discussing a frizz-controlling product. But they can, and they are, just as 42 minutes can be spent discussing anger at a teacher's careless remark to our child, of our struggle to find careers that allow us to put motherhood first but still fulfill our needs, of the silly follies of our coffee and wine filled twenties, of our love for Italy and medium rare chocolate cake. The bond of women runs deep.

And so I was caught off guard at my unbridled joy as I painted Cate's little nails. It was the beginning of that bond - not just the bond of mother and daughter, it was that, but also the bond of a woman and the woman she will one day become.

Cate is proud of her nails. She flips of her shoes and shows them to anyone who will take a moment and look. "Toe paint," she says (and I have to translate). "Mama paint. Mama toes."

It makes me smile. I have a daughter. I already wish I had her hair.