I joined in with Five Minute Friday last week and couldn’t quite keep my writing on the prompt “connect” to five. Today, I did it! Here are the rules: follow the prompt, no extreme editing, write for five minutes flat and encourage the person who linked up at The Gypsy Mama just before you.

Today’s word is STRETCH.

{GO}

She is 10 and already there are so many things she knows how to do better than I.

Anything having to do with spatial intelligence.

Math for fun.

Tap dance.

My girl is a good teacher, too, so a few days ago, we sit in the basement, and she teaches me everything she knows about French braiding.

She is patient and thorough.

Recently, Sici, who has done her own long hair for months now, looked back at her school picture from the beginning of fourth grade.

“I don’t like how I did my braids that day,” she said.

“That’s because I did them!” I told her.

We both laughed hard.

So Sici patiently shows me the tricks of the trade with Abby, our pink haired doll with “greasy” hair, as she explains it, and I fold plastic strand over strand, and she says, “That’s good, Mama. If you want to see the full look a little more, start with a piece from further to the side.”

“Keep your fingers right up at the top, so the strands don’t get loose.”

When I’ve gained a little more confidence on doll hair, her sisters sit in front of me one by one and let me try what I’ve learned.

Then Sici types me a list of tips.

It’s hard for me as a mama sometimes to admit all that I don’t know, to feel the good stretch.

The stretch of humility.

The stretch of remembering what it is to be a child, that not knowing and feeling the strands of doll hair in my fingers one by one.

{STOP}