Pause Awhile

It's 200 pages of rainbowed potential but I'm thinking about how I might regret buying it. I'm imagining how I'll be picking up paper airplanes and sparkle-glued sculptures for weeks and how my husband and I will sigh and throw our hands up. But then she bends and thumbs through the pad of construction paper, fanning the colours from bottom to top. There's thoughtfulness in her face and I ask her if she is inventing in her mind and she flashes a smile that says thank you for knowing me, Mommy. And suddenly, I don't regret my purchase.

Later, I dash past the piano on my way with odds and ends in tow--a hair barrette, a towel--misplaced in the kitchen, a sock. I'm stopped in my tracks when that familiar thing he does catches my eye. He's lined the keys again with his vehicles. He calls it his parking lot and I can understand how the lines make for good placement, better than his bedroom car mat. I remember how I used to get frustrated by this and how I told him it would damage the keys but I can't remember anymore why it matters.

Their cousins come with snow gear and they all seem to think that a game of who-can-get-the-most-soaked will be fun... right down into their socks. They throw snow haphazardly, much of it landing inside boots and collars and when I almost scold, because I know too well the whining that will entail, I open the door and take photos instead. They throw snow back at me and it lands in my kitchen and I have to pause and grin and make memories with them because I'm a grumpy old mom otherwise. I really can be. So I pause awhile.

She's three weeks old and she's smiling at me and I'm melting and wishing...

Babies are my weakness and as I hold her tiny beauty, I'm taken in all the ways a Mommy can be taken and she's not even mine. Suddenly, the paper, the cars, the snow, they're all worth it and it goes so quickly and I can't stop the time racing. I cradle this one and whisper a promise to myself to never let my impatience over their childish ways make me forget they won't be children for long.

I sit tonight with fingers tapping keys and I can say, it's been a good few days... because I paused awhile.

(Linking up with The Homeschool Village on what our week looked like. Check it out!)