5 positive parts about America that the citizenship swearing in ceremony will make you realize

Loverpants got to pledge allegiance to the United States of 'Merica last week, and the whole morning was just pretty keen. My hubs has his own immigration story to tell, but he and his family have endured a lot to call this place home. As for me, I just get to take the pictures and wave the star spangled banner. Here are a few things a swearing in ceremony will either highlight or reaffirm about this great nation:

1. The immigration process is still a careful one. From the biometrics to the interview to every piece of paperwork, the bureaucracy is boss. The process for letting the good guys and gals in is still pretty stinking thorough. I'm sure there are a hundred different ways to outsmart Uncle Sam, but his gates strive to be ironclad and the gatekeepers aim to be good flaggers of criminality.

2. Your new neighbors bring a ton of wealth to this country. So maybe they've been here 5, 10 years. They speak Yoruba, Farsi, Spanish. They celebrate high Hindu holidays. They braid hair and weave baskets and practice law and medicine like bosses. Maybe they are bosses. We just don't always see them gathered all at once on a happy occasion in one room. The swearing-in ceremony will remind you of the riches of language, culture, religion, and racial diversity that the wave of recent immigrants represents. Total jackpot.

3. The Daughters of the American Revolution are still a thing. They make cookies and wave flags and celebrate citizenship at swearing-in ceremonies. Civic engagement for the win.

4. Hamilton the Musical is sold out indefinitely for a reason. The convergence of hip-hop with the brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda and colonial petticoats is all pretty cool. But so is our history as a young nation of zealous freedom seekers. It still resonates. I have to believe this is why Judge Susan Lee got all verklempt swearing in these new citizens last week. She says it's her favorite thing to do.

5. There are now 50 more immigrants-turned-citizen in Chattanooga who will be eligible to vote in November, who likely are against building a wall along our border with Mexico, who don't believe America needs to be made great again, since the best is surely yet to come :)

Wishes

Little Man: The other day when I made a wish on the wishbone, I wished that-- Baby Girl: DON'T SAY WHAT IT IS IT WON'T COME TRUE! Little Man: It already came true. Baby Girl: Oh. What was it? Little Man: I wished that I would snuggle with Mama. Baby Girl: But you snuggle every day with Mama?!

*** Wishes are granted, prayers are answered; we look for stars colliding but often it's the stardust settling into the cracks of our life that holds things together, that holds us in place to experience the good, the great, the snuggles under Blanket Mountain.

Eight.

Dear Daughter who turns 8 this week, I have very little original material to add to the canon of cliched things parents say when their kids turn another year.We hyperventilate How did this happen? and reminisce I swear we just brought her home from the hospital! Those are part of the theatrics of parenting. The powers of the human growth hormone are still amazing to us, apparently. As is the fact that you are no longer capable of being burrito-wrapped and carried in a bucket seat all day.

But we feel those things, sincerely. We feel them in the depths of our being. They often mask even deeper feelings of great gratitude that one more candle has been added to your cake, and tinges of grief that you are growing into a more refined version of who you are--and in turn, growing farther away from us. You are still close in proximity but your being is further removed from our control. Your reflexes sometimes surprise us, your questions sometimes alarm us, but your smile still completely disarms us.

The other day, you handed me a page you had torn out of your wordsearch book. It was an ad for a vinegar diet. The? You gave it to me like it was a recipe card for a smoothie that I might try, and then you kept asking me about it and asking me about it and finally you said, "I know. You think I'm saying you're fat." Which, okay. I must have mentioned buying a diet soda recently and it triggered you to offer me this poor man's brochure for Jenny Craig. And you've probably absorbed lots of messaging around dieting and fat-shame from random tween room tours on YouTube. But I'm marking this as one of those odd milestones wherein we had a good reckoning. You brought up something not intending to hurt me but you could sense that this was one of those complicated life moments of loaded intentions and outcomes. And I shared that this had hurt my feelings and that no one in our family needed to go on a diet. Especially not a vinegar one. Please never a vinegar one.

This is the beauty of your growth. You've emerged from the puppetry of being 1, 2, 3, when you echo our words, when your head turns and your mouth opens and your eyes close with the rhythms of your puppeteers. You are free-standing now, on a stage removed, with directions and an unwritten script. And we are so disgustingly proud of you.

You are a thoughtful, conscientious, wonderfully inventive beauty of a girlchild. You are still wildly affectionate with an enthusiasm that we cannot harness. You do very well in school. Your bedroom walls are papered thick with pictures of horses. You still coach your dolls and stuffed animals in hushed tones and I imagine you are teaching them a progressive anti-bullying curriculum. You overhear me talking on the phone and chastise me for what you perceive as gossip. You amaze me. I love you and I like you.

But most importantly, you know Christ's love for you, and I pray that He continues to take hold of your heart. I pray that you make Him your best friend and become even bolder for Him. You live your life in exclamation marks now. I pray that you will become eight times eight times eight times eight times even more exclamatory about Jesus, for whom you are still one of His best ideas yet.

Love,

Mama