I feel like I have not been recording the moments fast enough or with enough clarity. I feel how quickly they are changing and have this false hope that I will somehow remember all their unique nuances and quirks. Last night Julien could not sleep. He kept creeping down. It happens when he has a nap, which seems to always happen when he is at preschool. Despite my begging them to keep him awake they have informed me that it is not allowed to shake kids awake or give them chocolate so that they don't nap....go figure. So, he sleeps for 45 minutes and then is awake at night until past 10:00. Last night he wanted to go to bed with me....and so I let him. This is dangerous as I know that he will ask for it every night...."just a special treat mama, just tonight." I can already hear him saying it. He got all his animals and brought them into bed. I told him that I was going to read and he could stay but he couldn't talk with me because I was reading. He agreed. I got him a book. It was so sweet. He lay next to me looking up at his book as I lay beside him looking up at mine....an old couple. Then he started reading out loud. All written text for him says one thing. It says "I love you Mama." So he lay next to me in bed reading "I love you mama. I love you mama. I love you mama." but he struggled and paused the way Lukas does when reading in order to sound as if he was actually reading the text. Of course I could not concentrate on my book....The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, when next to me is my beautiful 4 year old son who is attempting to "read" and is pronouncing his love for me again and again....such sweetness.
I also want to capture the love these boys have for each other. Every day the goodbye to Lukas grows more dramatic as he leaves for school. They yell down the street "Bye, Have a nice day! Have fun! Bye! See you!" or Julien's favorite..."Bye bye forever." That one sort of creeps me out.
Or how Julien hides when we pick Lukas up at school and then pounces on him with a hug. How they spend most Saturday mornings making restaurants or forts or play spies or my favorite was last week on Wed. when we made an amazing puppet show. It evolved out of boredom and a box. The box made a perfect puppet theatre. Then they got paper bags and made bugs and a boy. The show was called "The boy who got lost". They made tickets and a program and poster. They designed lights and a set and created sound effects. There was, of course, a thunderstorm in our show.
When I have moments like these.....making a puppet show or last Sunday when we took our first family bike ride to the bakery...all four of us each on our own bikes! During these moments I find myself grasping them....wanting things never to change....wanting to hold on to this precious, simple, sweet and tender time. Or last night when we all went out after dinner and played a huge game of hide and seek until 7:30. We were running around the house and hiding and giggling and screaming and having so much fun together. I can't hold on to these times. They just keep changing. But I appreciate them. I am so very, very grateful for this time and these boys.
