I appreciate every one of these days. Despite the never-ending requests for more towels and more food, the nonstop cleaning up of water from floors far from the actual pool, the picking up of laundry that doesn't even belong to anyone who lives in this house, the discovery of used paper plates on the living room floor, I wholeheartedly savor these days. A minute ago I think that boy of mine was maybe 8 years old, wide-eyed and softer, and back then he needed me around nearly all of the time. He truly wanted me around almost all of the time. Those were the days of, "Watch me! Watch me do this, Mom! See this! Mom, look!" Grinning, insistent, his little hands on my knees, "MOM! SEE ME!" Now, after that minute (which was really, inexplicably, and stunningly, five years), I am more in his background ... and these tall, gangly, diving and front flipping and ball throwing boys are polite and appreciative of food and dry beach towels and a place to swim .... but they're all done yelling at me to notice them. In just another minute, just like that same minute that I barely remember passing by, they'll have graduated from high school at this point in June.
And so, I'm content with the excessive towel use, the laundry that doesn't actually belong here, the nonstop cereal and mac and cheese and juice. I'm more than content with all of that, just to get to be in this minute right here, to soak it in, to make it last as long as it possibly can.
These minutes are so impossibly fast.