Motherhood

I've felt so behind lately. I often think of the phrase "I'm a day late and a dollar short, and it's okay," because I constantly feel like I'm just trying to pull together what needs to be done that is absolutely necessary and there is just not time for the rest. I've been forgetting about things and dropping the ball TOO OFTEN. The days have been blending into one long day and I haven't done as well as I need to at savoring the moment. I was talking with my mother/sister-in-laws tonight and Caroline was telling us about this quote that a friend of her's had come across when she was a young mother in the throws of young motherhood. It reads as follows:

“Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach. T. Berry Brazelton. Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with ‘Goodnight Moon’ and ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories." “…The biggest mistake I made (while raising her children) is the one that most of us make…I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of [my children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.” --Anna Quindlen
I want to remember how they smell, because they still smell so good. I want to remember how soft their skin is, because it is still so soft, and they will still let me place my cheek right next to theirs. I want to remember their sweet voices, their chatter, the conversations, their laughter, how their faces look when they sleep and the quiet sound of their deep breathing....I want to memorize everything about them, how they are RIGHT NOW, just stop time and savor it all because I am so in love with them and it is all going by too fast.