{reallife} suck the marrow

May 16, 2012

{reallife} suck the marrow

Real life is amazing. Amazing and intense. Amazing and delightful. Amazing and crazy. And like that fair slide you paid seven whole dollars for, in cash, it's over before you know it.

I'm feeling nostalgic about Peter's upcoming birthday. Four has been well -- amazing. And intense and delightful and crazy. And while it seems like he's been four for forever {say that five times fast} is he really going to be a five year old in four days? Wow. My babies are growing up. And thus, the nostalgia.

I put my arms around his neck more often these days. I know life just won't be the same soon. I just want as much lovin' time as possible. Cause he's been doing really great off by himself at preschool two mornings a week and the other day he took his legos out to the green space to show his friends and did a fabulous job of entertaining six of them for more than ten minutes with his creative pretend play with props. He has real conversations with friends. He thinks certain girls are cuter than others {uhoh}. But it isn't beneath him to chase around the playground equipment roaring like a tiger. He's my silly baby one minute and my grown up boy the next.

And so it goes. I've been willing life to slow down lately, sinking into bean bags with snugly boys and piles of books, piling up together on the grass, sitting on logs by the lake. Life is beautiful. I might be getting so lost in the slow rhythm of it all that I'm forgetting appointments and not preparing for my around-the-corner trip to Guyana {I know, I keep hinting and withholding details, sorry -- it's all because I'm living in the moment, but one day soon my anti-procrastination venom is gonna kick in full force, you wait}. Yeah, we were late to gymnastics yesterday and only caught the last half of class because a friend texted me.

But how can you not love these last few weeks of four and two? Soon my boys will be five and three and potty training and kindergarten and who knows what all will creep into the stillness of our current euphoria. I know it'll be great, but I'm not in any rush to get there. Crazy how I look back and think senioritis was the silliest thing ever concocted.

We gotta enjoy the moments, folks. Drink the life out of them. Suck it up. {hah, that's new meaning for that phrase}

Is this what turning 29 has done to me? All this grabbing hold of time and holding onto babies?

Oh the sweet nectar of toddler love. And the way he kisses my cheeks. Again and again and again.

I certainly didn't know it would be this fun.

Before marriage and kids, I had no idea how hard early motherhood would be. Such idealistic expectations...well, really just a naive fantasy of family life. Good times, but no real concrete understanding of what it would look like.

When I was breastfeeding my second and potty training my first, I didn't know if I would survive. Or if I wanted to see what the rest of my life would be like. What had I wished for? Stuck in that cloud of pain and sleepless nights, I couldn't have imagined how lovely things would be in just a few years.

Isn't life wild? The expectation, the hardship, the surprises?

Right now, life is like a concoction of delicious flavors and vibrant colors. Like a mango, spinach, celery, ginger, apple, carrot, beet menagerie of goodness.

And we are sucking it up.