Sometimes I watch my kids from afar and get the feeling that I am a voyeur on their lives. Like they are in actors in a movie or a play that I have the privilege of watching.
Scenes get etched in my memory, seared almost, and I seek to hold onto them, knowing that the play will continue and there's no 'rewind' button.
I took all three of the crew to the "jelly" playground. (We have codenames so we don't have to spend time saying, 'no, the one with the slide!!')
On the way home, Tonka and Paco ran off ahead of me on the sidewalk.
As far as days go, from a weather perspective, today was as idyllic as it gets. It was 5pm and the combination of weather, sun, trees flowers, and 2 young kids, running without the proverbial care in the world, as fast as they could to the end of the sidewalk....well, it was just magical.
I saw them running away from me, a metaphor for the growth process, of course. It didn't make me sad, but it did fill me with a sense of appreciation for the moment and awe for my role in this ongoing human micro-drama.
I looked at Gianni in the stroller, thought about the day she'd run with them and just took a deep breath, trying to take it all in.
BTW, Tonka, Paco, and Gianni are their nicknames :-)