random thoughts...

* me and my boys on Mother's Day

"...(about raising her children)....But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were."
--Anna Quindlen

... and this my friends is why I blog... if only I was as eloquent as Anna Quindlen. I just don't want to forget the little things like that when jack's allergies are acting up he says things like "I have crumbs in my eyes again, Mommy" or that when Thomas walks to you he get so excited he squaks like a terradactyl or the little things that make an impressions on a three year old like when I over heard him telling his friend on the playground behind the library today that his "grandma" (who we call Nana but when he is talking about her he calls her his "grandma") has the coolest library- much cooler than ours over there (pointing to our apparent "ghetto" library)" or that Thomas launches his bottle across the room when he is finished.... the list goes on and on...