Stolen Moments

My babes are growing...............

So fast.

It's unbelievable to me that my baby, my screaming, grow-me-as-a-mother, as-a-person baby is growing.........

But she is.

Tonight I lay in bed with her, sipping my glass of wine - her taking a fingertip full, declaring it AWFUL, doing Hidden picture puzzles with her at 9:30.......

Yes, it was WAY past her bedtime.

I didn't care.

For it was precious time, time away from her brother, time away from her sister.........time with just her mama.  

We laughed together and giggled at how "bad" we were being - up late at night - her taking a taste of my wine, me breaking my rule of no kids after dark.

And it was so good.

And they told me.

They told me it would happen.

That one day these babies of mine would grow up and it would be good, as good as those days of building and playing and creating and staying home all day.  That the days of when school and friends and independence would invade and bodies would grow and they would start to break free...............that those days, too, are good.

It's hard to believe.

That even when you are loving all the time and everyone is needing you all time and life seems so intense and baby-filled that the days after would be just as good and need-filled and intense.

And they are.

Oh, my girl, how I delight in you.

How I delight in these stolen moments of just me and you.

It brings me back to those days - those precious and so few days of just me and you when you were a babe.

Only 18 short months and then there was another, another to fill my lap and my mind and my time.

But these moments of giggling and sharing and daddy coming in, mouth gaping and words asking why are we up so late, oh my these moments are just as precious as when it was me and you in the rocking chair, listening to Baby Einstein..........me crying over Pachelbel's canon, imagining your wedding day when you were just a few weeks old...............

Thank you.

Thank you, Lord, for these stolen moments.

These are the moments that I will treasure and keep stored up for those days that are coming..............

Those days when she is far away and gone from my arms, from this house and is living a life of her own.

Let me not forget that my time, my attention, the out of ordinary moments are the ones that she, too, will remember.

What stolen moments have you had lately?