our gift

"Sensing the ground shifting beneath my feet, 
I resisted the new, unknown territory, 
already nostalgic for what I'd so recently taken for granted.
I missed my old world and it's funny little inhabitants,
those great big personalities still housed in small, 
sweet bodies.
I missed my sons' kissable cheeks and round bodies,
their unanswerable questions,
their innocent faith,
their sudden tears and wild infectious giggles,
even the smell of morning breath,
when they would leap, upon waking, from their own warm beds directly into ours.
I missed the person I had been for them,
too-
the younger, more capable mother who read aloud for hours,
stuck raisin eyes into bear shaped pancakes,
created knights armor from cardboard and duct tape.
Certainly my talents didn't seem quite as impressive anymore,
my company not as desirable as it once had been."

(excerpt from The Gift of an Ordinary Life)

I read this and instantly started to cry.

For me, now, it seems as though raising my lil' ones will last forever.

I just can't imagine my life any other way.

And you get so consumed in the day to day.

You forget that life is to be enjoyed,

cherished...

rather than rushed thru.

Trying to do it all,

have it all,

and give it all to my children

leaves us all sometimes scattered and exhausted.

Sometimes we need to be reminded to 

enjoy these fleeting years.

To savor the quiet pleasures in life,

to pay more attention to the people we love than 

to things,

and to allow my boys the time and space to play,

& daydream.