a moment...

I tip-toe into their room at 10pm to put a just-ironed shirt on the dresser, and as I turn to leave, I can’t resist their peaceful sleeping faces so I turn and go back in.  In, to kiss lips and cheeks and foreheads; to breathe in the smell of just-washed hair and to linger and stare at irresistible faces.  How are they 10, 8, and 6, and where did the time go?  The hours clocked as a mommy sure do seem to linger and hurry all at once....lingered when they were babies and seem to have picked up the pace as elementary schoolers...sometimes I can almost hear the time ticking away.  As I kiss soft, freshly scrubbed faces I choke back the thoughts that one day they'll be grown and won’t be here, under our roof for me to bend and kiss in the dark as they sleep on a school night.  So, I stay longer on flannel sheets and study faces propped on spiderman pillow cases and I give abundant thanks.  

Tomorrow we’ll wake up and the clock will start ticking away again, and someone will push his brother a little too hard, another will spill milk at the breakfast table because he’s messing around instead of sitting on his bottom and eating nicely and, I’ll probably have to tell them all over and over to hurry up and get ready for school and then wonder (out loud...very loud) if when I speak any sound comes out because everyone just keeps going about their business instead of responding. But tonight, I rejoice over them, kiss them like crazy and thank God over and over for allowing them to be mine.

 And I cherish this night that we are all under the same roof.