A Mother’s Kiss

I’ll be upfront.  Tonight’s post is really more for my memory books than anything.  Scott went to bed early while I finished the last 100 pages of Harry Potter, Book 5.  We joke that once you get to the last hundred pages, you’re stuck.  You have to finish.

Anyhoo, the house was all quiet and I went to check on the kids before heading to bed.  And I caught myself watching my children grow up in front of my eyes.

My big girl, my sweet, funny, sassy Anna-Laura starts kindergarten in less than two weeks.  Say it isn’t so.  And, Clare.  Oh man I just want to love her up.  I registered her for her very first “activity” today – dance class.  She was beaming all day.  Will and John Paul were both asleep with books in their beds.  Will’s feet are getting dangerously close to the end of the bed and John Paul isn’t a baby anymore.  He will soon be a first-grader.  And then there’s sweet baby Luke…who turns one in just six weeks.

Time is fleeting.  The days are long, but the years are so short.  And my prayer tonight is that I am a more patient mom with my kids.  Some of you may say that I am, but my heart knows that I have much work to do.

I strolled the hallway tonight and saw five beautiful frames that carry photos of each of my children at ages birth and every month until they turn a year.  I only have two slots left on Luke’s.  Two.  And then those frames are complete.

How did a decade of motherhood rush by so quickly?

Then I said a prayer of thanksgiving.  For the six things I love most in the world are peacefully sleeping, under one roof.  We have shelter.  We have love.  And we have faith.

The stack of medical bills will eventually go away.  The family calendar will be erased in a few short weeks for another month of activities.  The yard will get watered.  Yet, tonight, as I reflect on the many blessings in my life…the ones I cling to most are all here.  Fast asleep.

Former First Lady Laura Bush gave an interview once and remarked that one of her most vivid memories of motherhood was when her girls were little.  She had just gotten them snuggled in bed and she was out front, working in her garden, on a cool, summer evening.  And she felt tremendous peace.  At the time, I remember wondering if I would ever feel that peace, too.

Tonight, I did.