It's the simple things

Days are flying by. Way too fast. Sometimes I need to stop and enjoy all the little things. I hear that all the time, to slow down, but lately I have been really feeling it. My kids are the perfect age. They are so fun to be with. Yes, there is the occasional late afternoon when I want to tie a certain 4 year old to a tree and sell him to anyone who is crazy enough to take him. Or when your husband gets a phone call that your six year old was sent to the principles office. (Yes, this happened.) Those occasional things I can do without. But overall, they are perfect.

Last night at dinner it was just the four of us, Dax, Wyatt, Quinn and me. Somehow we got to telling “ghost stories” while we were eating. Wyatt kept telling the same story and kept getting to the same exact point in the story when he was laughing so hard he couldn’t go on. It went like this, “Once upon a time there was a ghost named Eyeball.” And then hysterical laughing. Laughing with tears and drool and gasping for breath laughing. Wyatt thought he was the funniest thing on the planet. Dax thought Wyatt was the funniest thing on the planet. Quinn, seeing her brothers laughing, thought that was the funniest thing on the planet. And I couldn’t stop laughing at how hard the rest of them were laughing. This lasted all throughout dinner. Genuine laughing. It felt good.

As I was putting the kids to bed I thought about our dinner. Nothing else was on my mind when we were laughing about the scary eyeball. I wasn’t thinking about how I needed to hurry them along to get in baths, or about the pile of dishes or the dirty floor that needed to be swept. I wasn’t thinking about the good book I was finally going to be able to pick up again once they were in bed. There were no interruptions by the phone or the television. Nothing else was going on at that moment that was more important than my kids. And I wanted time to freeze. I wanted to enjoy it longer and more. I need to enjoy it more.

So, I am interjecting a mid-February New Years Resolution. It’s to stop and enjoy the simple things. To not take them for granted. To cherish these moments with my children. To take mental pictures of their laughing, chubby faces. To remember that we laughed about eyeballs for 20 minutes. And to not wish time by.

Wyatt and I sat outside last week on a gorgeous 74 degree day (don’t be jealous…okay, never mind, you should totally be jealous!) and watched Quinn. She is my example. She was enjoying the simple things. She gasped when a breeze came though. She stopped and listened to the birds chirping. She enjoyed the warm sun. She laughed at her brother when he was being silly. She smiled and kicked her legs when Brewster went cruising by. She felt grass for the first time. She was enjoying the simple things. I want to be like her.

I tried to put a magic spell on my kids last night before bed. I willed them to wake up the same, not a day older or bigger, but the exact same. Because right now, they are perfect.