Reality Check

Over the last week or so, I have become a bit lazy. Lazy about spending time with the kids...just stick a movie on and tell them to leave me alone...Wednesday on Cafe Mom in one of the groups I'm in I read a post from the mom of a 17 year old boy. He is a "punk" and according to her can have mouth on him...He had been shot twice and beaten with baseball bats and the butts of the guns used to shoot him. His friend was killed in the attack. He came out with a through and through bullet wound to the chest and a bullet fragment in his lung. A broken femur, elbow, jaw, ribs and skull. He has already endured two surgeries and is looking forward to more. Wow.
Then, today as I was browsing blogs, I came across one, a mom who lost her daughter earlier this week, to drowning. My heart breaks. Then, this morning at church the pastor talked of a friend who had recently lost a 10 year old son to cancer.
Oh, how I take for granted my children. I forget constantly how important they are to me. When life starts to just take over and the frustrations and idiosycracies of each of them surface, you forget. At least I do. I don't want to forget. Life is so precious. So fragile. It's just so easy to forget.
I look at my children, and I am filled with such a powerful feeling of wanting to protect and hold them forever. They just keep getting older and bigger and more independent. I know that is what's supposed to happen, but sometimes I just want to freeze the moment. Freeze the day. Let me remember always the moment and never forget.
My heart breaks for the mothers who have lost their children. It is so wrong for a parent to ever have to bury a child. And this week has reminded me to grasp those moments. To freeze those days in my heart. I can sleep anytime, when my almost 13 year old wants to talk to me it is that moment that is of vital importance. The day will come all too soon when R won't want me to kiss her goodnight, T won't want to be tucked in, C won't fit on my lap, M won't want to hang with me and tell me his crazy imagination stories. I'll be left with memories of my babies. I am choosing to savor those moments. Life is just too short. Especially the moments with my children.
Sentimental me. I'm closing now, I am going to seize the moment that my boys want me to swim with them. I'll let my mascara run, and not care. I'll get my hair wet and not worry about how the chlorine is drying it out. I'll wear my swimsuit and not nitpick about the stretch marks on my thighs or the cellulite. Because, really my boys don't care about that. They care that their mom is swimming with them. Tonight, I will hug their tired little bodies to mine and kiss them each a few extra times as I tuck them into bed. Because, those are the moments...