It won't be like this forever

The children were outside playing this afternoon with Benj while I baked bread, did laundry and tidied. I was standing at the sink and I saw Benj pulling the wagon with Shiloh in it. He was gripping the red sides with his chubby, dimpled hands, his little legs stuck straight out in front of him, and his sunhat bobbing as the wagon jerked over the rough terrain. Zion was kneeling at the sandbox, and even though I couldn't hear him, I could see the shape of his dear little mouth, and I knew he was making his "vroom" sound as he ran his cars. Judah was sulking, and Mercy was fixating on some little project with some flowering branches Benj had congenially cut out of a tree for her. I was suddenly gripped with the knowledge that this won't last forever. Robert Louis Stevenson's poem came in bits to my mind:
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

I could briefly glimpse myself standing at a kitchen window, washing dishes and staring out into the yard and my little boys aren't there...off doing big-boy things, doing farm chores, growing up. I wanted to engrave upon my heart and mind that image of Zi-Zi with the sun in his curls contentedly running his cars and making loud car sounds. 

I used to think of myself as a wife, homemaker, musician, artist,writer, foodie, bibliophile, etc, but right now, my whole identity is wrapped up in mommy. Cleaning noses and behinds. Cooking vast amounts of nutritious food. Washing mountains of laundry. Worrying that I'm feeding them the right things, worried that I'm choosing the right school curriculum, worrying about...just about everything. As Ann Voskamp says, "keeping babies out of the toilet and out of the road." Picking up toys, breaking up fights. And tired. Mostly just tired. Some days seem like they last for years, and yes, yes, some days I would like to run away (just for a couple hours). But it will end. I will blink my eyes, and my precious babies won't need me to wipe their noses or wash their clothes or cook their meals. And I will be sad, and I think I will even miss getting up in the night for the second or the tenth time. I'm generally not wont to be maudlin, but I have to remind myself of these things lest in the flurry of diapers and someone needing a drink RIGHT NOW, and someone spilling glitter, and someone shut in the pantry, and mommy he shoved me and mommy he's standing on the table and mommy mommy mommymommymommymommy...I forget to notice them and hug them and smell them and laugh. Mostly I forget to laugh. 

And I will get a shower without someone shouting at me and opening the curtain so that water goes all over the floor, then crying when they slip and fall. I will get up and drink my coffee without being asked to read a story before my eyes are even open the whole way, and I will set breakfast on the table without having to clear 37 pieces of paper, 45 markers, 522 legos, 5 sheets of stickers (and a partridge in a pear tree) out of the way. I will be able to sit down to send an email or make a phone call without finding someone eating chalk, swishing in the toilet, or sauntering outside without permission. And while I hope I will relish that phase of my life, I don't want to miss one minute of this stage of my life so I don't have regrets. It won't be like this forever, so I'm hanging on to each moment while I can.