In my Cocoon

Yesterday, the kids wanted nothing but to lay with me. To cook with me.  To talk to me.  To be my "special helper."  To sit next to me at the dinner table.  And it was like that the day before, and the day before that.  And, to be truthful, I was probably a bit annoyed, at least part of the time.  I desperately wanted to take a bath in peace, to watch a movie not intended for kids, to clean a room uninterrupted.  But I couldn't.

Because, right now, we live in a little cocoon.  A little nest that we built and rarely venture out from.  We stay within feet of each other, all the time.  Our furniture wears out three times as fast as it should, because we live on it.  Together.  The older boys go to school, but once they are home, it's shoes-off-hugs-all-around-speed-talking.  Because they want to be with me.

But those days are fleeing.  I can physically feel them slipping away.  In one year, Annie will start preschool.  In two more years (maybe three), she'll start Kindergarten,  And my cocoon will start to lose its appeal.  Patrick will be in middle school and maybe tolerating me at best.  (Leo isn't going anywhere.  Leo will stay with me forever.)  Hatch will have probably abandoned me early.  And Annie will eventually follow suit. And I won't be as important in my house as I am now.

And, as I work and I stress about needing to work more, as I over-commit myself to plans I may never follow through with, as I sometimes feel badly about how rarely I leave my cocoon, how I never wear real clothes, how I couldn't even tell you what stores sell what, I tell myself again and again...

Be here now.

Enjoy this now.

Smell them now.

Love them now.

Put them first now.

Because it's not going to be like this for long.