thoughts on being a mommy

Tonight, I lied in bed...listening to the sound of tiny bubbles burst in a sippy cup as my baby girl drank her last bit of milk for the day. I watched her tiny chest rise and fall, and felt her mean, scratchy fingernails wriggle around my arm as she calmed herself. I smelled her baby lotion and her freshly shampooed hair. I felt her warm exhale on my cheek as she huddled in close. I listened as her tiny, sweet voice mumbled herself off to sleep. I stared at her tight, rosy cheeks and those long black lashes. I drank it in and sighed. One day, I will blink, and she will be grown.

What am I going to do when I don't have her on my hip as I walk around home, trying to get things done with one hand? When Eddie doesn't need my reassuring hugs, or try to rub noses with me? When I don't hear his squeaky whines and whimpers and sighs throughout the house? When I can't tickle Jacob awake every morning, and watch that always present grin creep onto his face for another day? When I can't welcome him home from school with a big hug, and feel our whole home brighten with his return?

This is it. This, right now...is the best part of life. This is my life's greatest honor and reward.

Someday my house will stay clean, I won't make 7 meals a day. There will be no fingerprints on my cupboards and doors. The books will stay in the bookshelf. The toilet paper will stay on the roll. I'll sleep through the night without interruption, I'll read books in quiet solitude. I'll answer the phone and have a nice conversation. I'll make plans to run errands and maybe see a movie. I'll pay the bills and file things neatly away. I'll listen to music I like, or watch a TV show for me. And I will MISS this...more than anything. I'll wish for THIS back, more than anything. And I'll long for the sound of their cries and giggles, the messy evidence of their existence and the bountiful, overwhelming chaos that is my life today.