I'll remember you chubby thighed and close. Always close. Reaching up to touch my hair, rub it between your fingers, and bury your face in it.
I'll remember your head against my chest, your eyes blinking slowly as you fight sleep, your hand absentmindedly stroking my arm.
I'll remember the night you threw up at 6 months old and yet were still so content. And we called our doctor and googled and went to buy pedialyte and listened to my mom's soothing voice.
I'll remember the toughness of your Dad when you had your first fever at 9 months old. He drove to the pharmacy at 1am while also sick as a dog to get you baby Tylenol. Anything for his girl.
I'll remember singing lullabies, rocking, and you singing back to me. I'll remember your hugs and how you'd lean in when we'd say "SQUEEZE."
I'll remember you crawling around while Daddy laid hardwood floors and you'd blink really fast when he used the hammer.
I'll remember coming in your room after naps...your feet pounding the mattress in excitement, your eyes glowing, your checks rosy from sleep.
I'll remember the way your eyebrows shoot up when you get a good bite. You loved eggs yesterday, then wouldn't eat them today, so I dipped some in ketchup, which you ate, but then you decided to suck all the ketchup off and spit out the eggs unthawed.
Honestly, I can't see how I won't live always wanting to be in this moment. With you.
And one day the laundry will be done, the rooms will be tidy, the coffee will be hot, the dinner will be on the table by 6pm, the hair will be washed. And yet I'll miss when you sat on the floor and whined and reached until I came and picked you up. Or the long moments I spend next to your high chair waiting for those tiny four teeth or finish chewing wherein your lips start smacking and palms start hitting the tray and I feed you another bite.
I'll ache that there were ever times I wished away. And I'll bargain that I'd give it all away just to hold you once again to my chest.
God said I need somebody who can shape a soul and find shoes on Sunday mornings and get grass stains out of Levis.And make dinner out of nothing and do it again 79, 678 times, and keep kids off the road and out of the toilet and in clean underwear and mainly alive though she’s mainly losing her mind and will put in an 80 hour week by Wednesday night and just do one more load of laundry.And one more sink of crusted burnt pots.And keep on going another eighty hours because raising generations matters and weaving families matters and tying heart strings matters and these people here in hidden places matter.So God made a mother…-Ann Voskamp
