Darla's Mom

The view from here ain’t bad

She likes it

Like her namesake Darla Hood, there is a gang of kids in my Darla’s life.

They do the birthday thing and swim parties, and sleep overs and meet up at Disney land and they email and write and when Darla was in the emergency room, they sent her videos.
It is all very sweet and wonderful. Although she is the youngest of 4 sisters, she and I live alone and she is very much an only child. This arrangement of little girls and their brothers gives her a peer group and a touchstone.

She has lived her life sleeping in their hand me down cradles and clothes, and though the youngest of the girls, they treat her as an equal. At the yender age of 3, she has equity and a role in their little society.

I dig these kids. Catie has deep imaginative thoughts, El Diablo has a perspective on the world and won’t be swayed, Zoe is a compassionate bundle of hugs and wiggles, and Bella is going to evolve from her clean and quiet girl next door childhood and shake the world (write this down -she should be a trumpet player) and we are just getting to really know the Lompoc Ladies Sophia and Eva…but Darla has her own friendship growing with each of them and it is glorious.

My perk is that these girls have grown women attached to them whom I can talk to.

Darla calls them “The Mommies of My Heart”.

The adults of my generation whom I had expected, planned, and counted on being ever present guides in her life somehow fizzled, and when the smoke cleared Samantha, Andrea, Rebecca, Ali, and Crisi were here.

“I only have one mom, that’s you.byou know that. Right Mom? But And-we-wah and Miss Saman_ta , and Regular Zoe with golden hair:her mom what calls me Darla bug but I don’t have wings, and the..on and on.. In my heart they are my mommies too. They are the Mommies in my heart, but I live with you Mommy.”