In this season with many littles, I ask myself these questions a lot:

Will I remember this in a year?  Will my kids remember this in a year?

When it’s Bible study night and we haven’t met for a month and I’m looking so forward to 90 minutes of fellowship – and Phineas sobs when I try to leave him with sweet Ava.   When I give up trying to go and scoop him right up and head to Bartell’s down the street to get a binky because we forgot one and he’s sleepy and that’s partly why his face is so crumbled. I tell Ava, “I know this might seem silly, driving to go buy a binky and all….but someday, it really won’t seem so crazy!”.

When I resort to going up and down the elevator with him while I wait for the other kids and he won’t take off the enormous sound proof headphones because he associates them with the tractor and his daddy and he spent an hour sitting on it just saying “daddy, tracker?” over and over with the ridiculous ear muffs on.  We quit pushing buttons and I am thankful for this little 5×8 foot space so we just stay there.  I tell myself not to be embarrassed when someone pushes the button and finds me inside the elevator, sitting on the carpet with a box of bunny grahams and a happy toddler with headphones that say he’s an air traffic controller.

When I hurt a boys feelings for telling him he’s silly and he yells so long because I hurt his heart.  I have to apologize and his eyes are so sad it breaks my heart.  I hope he forgets how unkind I was to him.

When we let everyone go outside till 10 PM to make snowmen in the dark and they are frozen but delighted to the core.  Even Finn keeps up with the snowball making and cries when we have to go inside.

When little girl asks me, because she really needs to know, “When is Finn going to change the world Mama?” and I realize she heard me say that to a friend about her vivacious baby brother.  I tell her with a smile, “Oh he’s not the only one….you all get to change your world, whatever place God takes you – you get to change it for good if you choose!”.  And I mean that with my whole heart.

When I finally figure out that for the one who loves people more than anything, doing math alone was the end of the world.  Math with siblings is “the most fun ever, Mom!”.  How am I so lucky to get to teach math to these eager little people?

When I sit rocking a teething toddler after bedtime and he lets me cradle his 30 pound self like a baby and the instant he sees my face at his door his flowing tears stop and he breathes out “mama” as if I were his very life.  and he says the same thing over and over until I understand:

Song?  Do you want a song?

Yeah.  Fong.  Unshine. Away.

I sing the same song about sunshine over and over until he’s trying, in sleepy, baby, binky-in-mouth fashion to sing it with me.  It’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard in forever.  He lets me hold him for what feels like an eternity.  He points to my eyes, ears, nose, “mouf” and names them all in the dark.  My legs hurt.  I recall the work I still have to do and the sleep that is beckoning me.  But I stay.  I sing again and my voice catches because this, this is a moment I want to remember.

I want to be all here.  Though these days require more than what I feel like I can give, I won’t ever get the chance to do them over and I want so bad to remember all the little gifts along the journey.