This is my morning.

During times that nervous, introspective types like me find ourselves alone or with nothing productive to do (and, lately, laundry and emptying the dishwasher is way down on my list of priorities - I mean, I get it all done, but... come one, there is so much more to life than that), we start to reflect and lament and remember and analyze and wonder.... My mind always wanders to past years - mornings a long time ago (or short time, really).... when I had infants to wake and feed and toddlers to entertain and dress and a grade schooler to cart from sports to dance to sleepovers to school.... AND it all wasn't THAT long ago - I mean, less than two years ago, my youngest was still an infant. AND.... I STILL have a preschooler to feed and dress while the toddler-ish youngest still plays like a baby, sits in a high chair, has messy pants daily.... Thinking on these passages and how time really is an odd concept -that so much changes in just one year when your little ones are so young - well.... it just makes me appreciate it all so much more. So.... when I look at the breakfast plates that my boys - my big preschooler :-) and kindergartner have left behind - when I stand in the high schooler's room and notice how the little girl look is slowly changing entirely to "grown up" teenager - and when I watch my chubby, pull-up clad youngest girlie play by herself in the tv room, I get a little sad, a little happy, a little grateful and a little nervous. Every day is truly a gift that needs to be celebrated and lived! Let's all do that today (despite the cold and rain :-) - and I have a cold... and cough - did I mention that? Well, I do, so... this all may be the cough medicine talking ;-).