It`s a typical Wednesday morning. Mark crawls into bed with me still half asleep. He spent the night in Ethan`s room snuggling away bad dreams. Soon Ethan comes padding in quietly, quickly lifts the covers and finds that perfect warm spot right next to Mommy. His hair is soft from his bath last night and still smells faintly of shampoo, but mostly of little boy. I gently wipe the sleep out of his eyes and he turns on his side--my singal to start scratching. Josh is next to wake up. He knows that Daddy will come rescue him from his bed so he doesn`t cry, just calls out Dad, Dadaaaa. The covers next to me move ever so gently as Mark leaves to retrieve our baby. Josh cannot help himself but lean his head into the crook of his Dad`s neck. Josh is in bed with us now tugging at my PJ top, my singal to hurry up and and give him his morning appietizer. Ethan`s back is still turned enjoying his back scratch and Josh is thoroughly enjoying himself, his little hand rests on my stomache. His hair is light blonde with just a hint of a curl. I marvel at how perfect his features are his round cheeks, his big blue eyes peering up at me, those long dark lashes that he surely got from his Dad. Lena is next to arrive. Oh how she is adored! She is my little kitten. She has the ability to curl into the tiniest of places. This skill comes in handy, especially this morning as Real Estate on this Queen size bed is running low. She manages to squeeze herself in between Josh and her Dad, but is as close to me as possible, curling herself around her baby brother so we are sharing a pillow and her cold feet tuck under my warm leg. Her hair, as usual, has fallen over her petite face. Brushing it away unleashs her morning breath and it is now added to the rest of her family`s and the concoction is complete. Leni is wearing her pink thermal pj`s. They are polk a dotted with chocolate brown. There is a trace of last night`s dinner on her cheek, speghetti I think, I leave it. Mark eventually gives up trying to balance on his edge of the bed, and gets up leaving me with our three children. Ethan 5, Lena, 3, and baby Josh 15mos. The room is quiet, my babies are all under one comforter and so close to me I can hear each of them breathing. This moment is perfect. This moment doesn`t last for more than five minutes, but those five minutes were perfect. A little gift. If only I could wrap it up. Open it whenever stress, or impatience, or `why am I doing this` comes over me. Open it when they are teenagers and don`t want to snuggle anymore, at least not with me. Open it in the too soon future when my babies are all grown up. The little moments...Thank you Dear Heavenly Father for the little moments.
