Enter Their World

“What are you doing? Get out of there.”

“Drake, don’t tease the kitty.”

“I know you need something, but can you just wait five minutes.”

“We just have to run into Target, real quick, buddy.”

I get stressed. I admit. Not completely stressed out. I just get a little stressed when I need to get something done but the 1-year-old does not find it as essential. When I try to force MY agenda, I get stressed. When I’m multi-tasking and it isn’t going well. When I try to distract the toddler, or pay off the big girls to distract the toddler, so I can just barrel through this giant pile of laundry that needs folded…. “I promise, it will just take me 20 minutes.” Before I know it, I have a baby at the bottom of the stairs hollering, “MAAA!!” As stressful as that can seem (after the 13th time of him shouting it), I poke my head around the corner, and there are my kids. Smiling. Waiting for me to engage with them.

The truth is, when I put down the dish towel, when I close the computer, when I leave the dirty laundry just til nap time and enter their little worlds, all is well. All is right. I lose track of time. I forget about the stress and the work. I lose myself in their world, and when I make time to do that, everyone wins.

Drake gets my attention. He doesn’t need me to entertain him – he’s good at that. He just wants me to be present with him. To actively watch him and giggle with him. To flash him a smile when he looks up at me. I sit here watching his tiny features – the way his eyebrow raises when he is intrigued, the way his lips purse together when he’s concentrating. I watch what he does and how he does it. I study him. If he’s done with a toy, he flips it over and walks away. He makes noises for anything on wheels. All of this is unrecognizable to anyone not on his level, watching him. As I sit here and watch him, he suddenly comes up to me, grabs my face, and smooches me on the mouth. I remind him it’s time for a diaper change, and with the slightest (yet clear) disapproving whine and twitch of his face, I know it will be a challenge. He sneaks away, only to return and try to surprise attack me.

Lili eagerly bounces in the door after school, announcing that she has something to show me! She is talking a mile a minute and somehow I don’t miss a thing. She shows me all her work from the day. She is excited to pick a paper for the fridge. I study her face as she tells me about her day, about her favorite thing, about what she played at recess with her friends. She is still the little baby I brought into the world nearly seven years ago. That button nose was the same one I saw during our ultrasounds. Those rosy little cheeks, the sweet little freckles, those sparkly eyes. They will always be a part of me.

Cadee casually strolls in from the bus. “Hey, Mom! What’s up?” This girl, this little woman of mine, is comfortable everywhere she goes. Her confidence is extraordinary. Yet, she is still unsure about her smile. Little does she know that it makes my day when I see it, that her bright eyes warn me if she is cheerful or cloudy on any given day – that these are her signs. Signs that alert me to her mood. Her first order of business is finding Drakey to greet him with a hug – whether he accepts it or not. This child is loving, mature beyond her years, and yet still such a baby to me. We have grown together.

I watch him hide things away in his play kitchen. Wondering if he will ever remember putting it there. I watch her peacefully sit and color while humming a tune. I watch her cuddle up next to her dad. I watch them, and I know that I will never have this moment in time back again. I watch them and I know what joy and unconditional love is. I watch them and I vow to do better, be better, be more for them. It is in these moments that I am reminded why God made me a mommy. To see the world through their eyes – simple, entertaining, ever-changing – to love and to know love more deeply than I ever could, to be selfless, to be generous and forgiving, and to know joy. Earth shattering joy.