Sunday Night Teaches Me

By Megan

We spent a beautiful afternoon in the shady back yard tonight, soft summery music the soundtrack to our kids’ play and their parents’ chatter. Al made a redneck slip-n-slide with the sprinkler and a huge piece of thick black plastic, the very same tarp we taped tightly over Peabody’s windows back when he was a few months old and wouldn’t sleep if there was the tiniest beam of light anywhere in his room.

Was that nearly two years ago? Time slips by us faster than those tan, lean little bodies skid across the ground in the chicka-chicka rainbow spray of a Daddy’s happy invention. I’m amazed and amused with a tiny sliver of heart-achiness watching my children play their way through this perfect summer with their watermelon hands and their hair that smells like grass and heat and last night’s bath. Rapidly now, as my defenses helplessly give way to days much less measured and sun that shines seemingly forever, I am learning to live in the bliss, to allow the slow but strong current of their joy and ever-expanding independence to pull me along, smiling and easy, and I am filled with such gratitude to see how they teach me the value of this moment like I have truly never understood it before.

It makes me wonder how many times, though, I’ll have to be taught that lesson, in this life.

I had to come in from the back yard tonight and write this post. I dragged myself away from Al and the kids and I’m sitting here with words flowing out easily but also with this pulling, buns-halfway-out-of-chair buzz almost electrifying me. I am anxious to get back to them, fill my eyes and ears with this moment in their presence, and I am so, so happy to feel that way.

Maybe the lesson will stay with me this time, or at least stay with me longer?

Megan also blogs at FriedOkra.