These Moments Are All For Me

Christmastime is here. The sun is out, the house is decorated and we have actually managed to keep decorations on the BOTTOM of the tree this year for the first time in awhile. Samuel is sitting next to me playing with his "treasure box", a music box with a Christmas scene on the top. Isaac is running circles around the house at full speed, when he passes me he says either "MOMMY! Me running!" or "Yeehaw!". Alina is at pre-school and Emma is out running errands with Shawn. This is a quiet moment in my world, so I am going to take advantage of it by writing for as long as I can before one of these little guys needs me to wind something, fix something or get something for them to eat or drink.

Boys are so different than girls. Samuel is working so hard to figure out how this music box works, so he will spin and spin, stop the wheel, wind it and start again. He even puts his chin in it to feel it spinning (good thing he doesn't have whiskers yet), and now he managed to get the winding key out of it - pause. ...and back again.

Alina turned 4 yesterday. We had our Christmas play at the church. Emma was an angel (what else?), Alina was a parrot, Isaac was a homemade sheep (courtesy of his dad's newfound glue gun skills), Samuel was the cutest little cow you have ever seen.

I kid you not, Samuel just came out of the play room wrapped in dental floss and proudly exclaiming "TA -DAA". He has unloaded an entire container of dental floss and turned it into a fashion statement. I had to follow him because he went in the bathroom and just as I suspected, was getting ready to unload another container for his floss suit. Well now, this is handy, they are flossing their teeth now as they pull each other around like puppies.

Why so calm you say? Because they are entertained entirely for at least five minutes and I promise to listen closely to make sure it doesn't make itself into a noose. Strangulation by dental floss, try explaining that to the doctor.  This is not unusual, this is my life.

I try to explain the funny things the kids do when I am with adults, but it is so hard to capture. Their faces, a perfect compilation of every family member, with wrinkles in their foreheads and funny little facial expressions. Like Isaac when he tilts his head down, furrows his brow and runs sideways through the house like a superhero. It isn't funny in the telling, but so funny when it is happening.

Or how do I sufficiently explain what Emma does at bedtime? The girls and I sing before they go to bed, and each of them get to pick the songs on alternating nights. Emma always chooses "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - she has great taste in music. So now she knows it well enough to sing along and the other night I had her sing it to me. I admit, I cried a little. Then we told her daddy to come in and listen and he cried a little too.

When they grow it is always met with a little bit of sadness and nostalgia for me. I miss their funny little phrases that get corrected by daily conversations. Alina used to say "Me need oars help", and then one day she just didn't say that anymore I don't even know when she stopped.

Isaac will push through a crowd by saying "Cuse me, coming phrew" - and Samuel, when asked why he is doing something he will say "mmmm...cuz um cuz um cuz". He used to say "What dat do" when he was asking what something was, and now he says it properly. Too bad.

Then they break into something new and I want to do cartwheels. Emma can recite 10 scripture verses with their location in the Bible from memory, and she is learning to read and write. I love the advancing, but I miss my babies.

I love the bits of independence we are all gaining. The boys don't need us to lift them out of their cribs anymore and that is very nice in the moment, but I miss those automatic snuggles that come when they are barely awake in the morning.

Pictures and video are great for helping me remember, but I can't smell their sweet skin or nuzzle their chubby little necks. For now, what I have are these moments when they do such funny things that I can't even put it into words. Those moments. Those moments are all for me.

The other things that are all for me are the piles of dental floss that has been accumulating all over the house while I wrote this, the hand prints on the front window that announces to anyone going by that this is a crazy house with lots of kids, and the dishes in the sink that we didn't have the energy to do last night. So deep breath, my nostalgia time is up.

Merry Christmas everyone. I pray that you have laughter until your sides hurt and at least one moment when everything is so beautiful that it takes your breath away.