These Small Hours...

I am listening to my children play with each other. Noelle just came over to me and said. "Mom, I am being a good big sister right now. Sometimes I am mean to Jolie, and sometimes I am really nice. I am being nice right now." Jolie is pretending to be a little kitten and Noelle is taking care of the 'itty bitty kitty'. That is the name of the little kitten at their Nana's house. Sometimes I get so mad at myself because I let these moments slip by. I forget to stop and look at them, to memorize them. In my heart I know my girls are going to leave one day, but as a friend of mine has titled her blog, these are "long days and short years."

Why am I in such a hurry? What is it that I am running toward? I don't want to regret a moment. The other day I was thinking about this very same thing and so I caught myself just staring at Noelle. She looks so much like me that I have memories of myself at her age, and sometimes I really feel like I am looking at myself. It makes me sad. So, I just watched Noelle, as she talked to her little piggy. (Piggy has been around since she was 16 days old. He is a member of the family. I will cry just as hard as Noelle if we ever lose Piggy. ) Anyway, I was just staring at her. I was looking at the curves of her face. The little way her eyes twinkle when she talks. Her sweet little half grin. The way her pretty brown hair falls in her face and dangles in a slight curl. The sound of her voice and her teeny tiny little lisp. And then... I burst into tears. She is so funny because she saw me and told me to stop crying. She said "Mommy, don't you remember that I told you that adults don't cry?!?!" This was in reference to another time she caught me crying while I was watching a sad and triumphant episode of "Little House on the Prairie". She said in exactly these words..."MOMMY, STOP CRYING! Adults don't cry mom! They are happy and they turn on the Christmas tree, and clean, and turn on the fire, and feed us food, and cook. Stop CRYING!" So of course I laughed at her both times. She is a card. I want to hear her little voice in my head forever. I want to remember everything. But I can't. I won't. And it makes me sad.
I love these small hours. I want to catch them like fireflies, put them in a jar, and watch them glow. "Our lives are made of these small hours, these little wonders, these twists and turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours still remain..." Thank you Rob Thomas. I couldn't have expressed it any better. BTW, that song is #3 on my play list. Bye, for this little moment. It's time to snuggle with Jolie-bear.