A Few Extra Minutes

I've been feeling really fulfilled this week...and strangely satisfied.  Watching my children playing together, listening to them laugh, holding them close, reading them stories, and telling them how special they each are to me has really fed my soul.  I have caught myself pausing to breathe in the moments with increasing frequency.  Is it because I can see their childhood melting away before my very eyes?  Perhaps.

Keeping them cooped up in the house over the long Pennsylvania winter did nothing to slow their growth, and the sunshine of summer is only making matters worse.

Guy, Scarlett, and Autumn.  They are practically triplets, they are so close in age and now in ability as well.  I always wanted triplets, because I'm insane like that.  I have also always wanted five children, but even as I ask the Lord to send me more babies, I look at what I already have and I feel selfish asking the Lord to send me more.  How much more could I possibly be blessed with in this life?  And yet, I still sheepishly ask.  I ask him to strengthen me...to make me a better Mother...a better person, to make me capable of more...or to let me be satisfied and always grateful for what he has already so generously given me, and let me just mother my heart out to my three children.

Guy is getting so tall these days that he no longer fits in certain small spaces in our house.  I remember when we moved into this house, Guy loved to hide inside the kitchen cabinets.  He has always walked directly under the bar in our kitchen while walking to the living room, but today as he came around the corner, he banged his sweet little head on the sharp corner of the counter.  

Frustrated and in pain, he came to me crying and buried his head in my chest.  I explained to him that he is getting so big that he no longer fits in spaces where he always used to.  I said, "But do you know the one place where you will always fit, no matter how big you get???"  He just looked at me and said through his tears, "You, Mommy, you." And I said, "That's right, you will always fit in my arms...always."

He must've told me that he loved me five-hundred times before bed tonight--and each of the other kids have told me in their own ways the same thing over the last few days.  Guy begged me to stay and snuggle with him tonight.  And how could I say no?  It was two hours past their bedtime, but still I stayed.  I tucked them all into bed and tucked those few extra minutes into my heart.