An Apple a Day

Today I had a moment with my daughter. She had just woken up from her nap, and, being the food addict I am, I sat down with her and her cup of milk to have a snack. Since we live in Washington and have abundant access to apples this time of year, our snack du jour was just that. A delightful Pink Lady apple. We sat on the couch, apple in hand. I took a bit, she leaned over and said "ahhhh, pees," which is, sadly, not her way of indicating a readiness to potty train, but her way of saying "hey, can I have some of your apple, please?" Being the mother of a toddler, I don't actually get food to myself anymore, so I held the apple in front of her and she took a big bite. Little did I know, but that bite of Pink Lady was going to bring me to the point of near tears, for a number of reasons.

Two years ago I was miserably sick. Miserably probably doesn't do it justice, but I may be a bit melodramatic about the whole endeavor. I was about eight weeks into a pregnancy that was going to, by its end, feel eternal. I couldn't eat, and what I did eat never sat very well. I spent most of my time forcing down lemon Gatorade and trying not to be sick on my 5th graders (which, thankfully, I succeeded in doing. Or not doing. Whichever is grammatically correct to mean that I was not sick on them).

During this time period of my life I had a friend who was about 5 months ahead of me pregnancy-wise. She had spent the summer in the same type of miserable state that I was currently in, and was thus incredibly sympathetic to my maladies. She kept, in her classroom, a little refrigerator full of juice boxes and snacks. One day after school, when I was to that point of miserable starvation and nausea that only a pregnant woman understands, she offered me a Pink Lady apple. At first, I didn't like the idea. I didn't like food, period, at this point. However, she encouraged me to try it, suggesting that it might make me feel a bit better. And it did. I bit into that amazingly sweet yet tart apple. As I ate, I began to feel better. Something about the apple's sweetness and sustenance had made me feel less sick, which was something that I was beginning to believe was never going to happen again.

For this moment (and many others) in my pregnancy I am eternally grateful to this friend. This moment stands out because it started a habit that I kept up for the remaining seven months until my daughter was born. Every day, no matter what, I ate a Pink Lady apple. Even when it was February and they were $3.99/lb, I ate those apples. They helped my morning sickness, they curbed the insatiable appetite that was to magically replace the nausea after about 25 weeks, and they reminded me that, even though I might have been over dramatic and miserable, there are things in this world that can make us feel better. I probably didn't *need* those apples. But I did need them.

So, when I sat down with my daughter and shared my apple, I realized that I haven't really not had to share my food in over two years, and this made me well up a little. When I was pregnant she was virtually parasitic (and I mean that in the most endearing way), when she was an infant she sought nourishment from me, and now, as a small child, she is still stealing my damned food. But I am alright with that, because there are few things in this world that can match the look that crossed her face when she took her first bite of real apple. It was almost a vague sort of recognition combined with utter joy, because they are really that good. There are few things that can match the contentment of sitting with this little person, who is a part of me and part of someone I love, and watching her discover something that she's actually known since before she opened her eyes. There are few things that can match watching her, and realizing that the pea-sized blob on the ultrasound that made me so sick is now a running and jumping toddler. Few things match knowing that the still-unseen entity that kicked my ribs when I ate those apples because they were sweet and sugar-filled is that little girl.

Few things can match the magic of just sitting with my daughter, enjoying an afternoon snack.