“My perspective is still that you have “little” kids! In my mind, everyone else’s kids freeze in aging!” This is the comment that my friend Tracey, and fellow slicer left on my post from yesterday. When Tracey and I were reading teacher roommates, eleven years ago, my kids were two, one, and unborn. Now my girls are thirteen, eleven, and eight. They have not frozen in age, something that I try not to get too sad about. It was Tracey who always told me, every new age gets better and better.

This past weekend, as I sat through Wren’s ballet competition “gala”, a glorified title for dance awards (everything is fancier in ballet), I will admit that I was not completely present. There were a few minutes, where I went elsewhere. A distracted moment caused by what caught my eye in the seat diagonally to the left. A young girl, perhaps two or three years old, was sitting on her mom’s lap. She had been quiet during the entire gala. I hadn’t even noticed her until, towards the end of the ceremony. She had climbed so that she was kneeling on her mom’s lap, facing her. Her small arms were wrapped around her mom’s neck and her face so close, her mom was forced to tilt her head back, as if she was looking at the ceiling. The look at her daughter’s face was pure adoration and the mom’s face told me that she was also soaking up this moment. For a second, I could feel my own children’s arms wrapped around me neck, their chubby cheeks pressed so close to my own. I miss those moments when they didn’t feel like they could ever get close enough, like they would never let go.

What I wouldn’t give to have one of those moments again, ambushed by their love.

Where In the World Am I Writing From: Today, I am writing from an actual COMPUTER during a stolen moment in our school library. This quick draft will get a reread when I get home later tonight before I decide, good enough, and hit publish!