Lovely Things

I am sleepy, and should go to bed, but I've been thinking all afternoon of how many (small) lovely things I have experienced today, and I don't want to forget them. Probably I already HAVE forgotten some of them, but here's what I have held onto:

-Very early morning snuggles with my husband, just a minute or two together before we start a busy day.

-A hot shower

-Weighing myself, and seeing that I have lost a pound, a pesky pound that hasn't wanted to be lost for AGES.

-Lots and lots of coffee

-Ariel wrapping herself around me when I wake her up for the day

-Chatting with Kanga before I leave for work

-A tidy classroom, with poetry on the board and stacks and stacks of already graded papers

-Making break-throughs, great and small, with various children

-Reading stories out loud all day, and getting paid for it.

-Coming home to the two sweetest baby girls in existence

-The smell of Nessie's head... best smell in the world, I swear

-Listening to Ariel tell me ALL about her day, in charming, gabbling, inflected nonsense sentences.

-Taking the girlies for a walk in the soft fall afternoon light and breeze

-Seeing butterflies and Halloween decorations and leaves and dogs and airplanes, and discussing them all in great detail

-Reading Peter Pan* to my daughters while we rest from our walk, seeing Nessie become mesmerized with the sound of words and the pages in front of her, feeling her curl into me like she just can't get close enough to her Mama

-Until Ariel steals the book, and reads to us instead. Heavy on the page with the crocodile illustration, naturally

-Making dinner for everyone while my sweeties watch Baby Mozart, and NO ONE screamed at me, not even ONCE

-Being able to sit and eat dinner with my family, while it was still hot even!

-Warm baths for chunk-o-licious babies

-Wrapping Nessie up tight in a swaddler and rocking her to sleep

-Rolling Ariel's hair up in foam curlers, and then reading to her for much longer than was strictly neccesary

-That priceless, elusive feeling you get when your babies are bathed and jammied and dreaming away, and the toys are all picked up, and the dishes are done, and there's a load of laundry in the washing machine, and you have nearly a whole HOUR to spend however you want.

These are all lovely, lovely things, I think. And I'm awfully glad for every last one of them.

* Um, I have found more profound quotes about childhood and motherhood in this book than I thought possible. I could write a post for each of them, I think! One of my favorite bits right now is this:

"Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind, and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

That J.M. Barrie knew his mothers, now didn't he?