Today

Today the boys woke me up just after 7:00. After telling them it was too early to come out yet and going back to our bed to hopefully sleep a little longer before it was time to get up, I found Mia awake. (She had been in bed next to me.) The boys, surprisingly, were quiet, and after about 30 minutes or so, I saw Mia starting to get tired. She and I lay there in the quiet, and after watching her close her eyes a couple times, I closed mine. I woke up probably 30 minutes later. Went in to get the boys, changed dirty, wet diapers and opened the curtains in their room. All three of us ate cheerios with bananas at the kitchen counter. A beautiful snowstorm came last night -- so beautiful I wanted to watch it fall in the quiet instead of sleeping -- or take a walk, or go for a run with Scott in it. But, instead, I watched it falling from our bedroom window, and then, just before falling asleep, I walked out onto the back porch and stood there watching it fall. The world was lighter and still. I watched the trees getting weighed down, each branch getting highlighted instead of blending into the otherwise several-hundred-dark-branches of a tree in wintertime. I stood back at the window, watching again, before climbing into bed and watched the trees and wondered how something I've seen over and over again can still startle me and seem new, something magical, like I haven't ever fully recognized its beauty, like I'd forgotten it somehow. This morning, consequently, was beautiful. After breakfast I helped both boys into their snowsuits and boots and mittens. I snapped photos of them tromping around the backyard. After Mia went down, we went for a walk. I didn't hurry the boys as we walked around the block. We went at their pace. I was in between Isaiah, who was leading the pack, and Benji -- a very slow caboose today. We stopped at the park on the next corner and built a small snowman just off the sidewalk. They played on the slides, not really bothered at all by all the wet snow. We walked home and stopped at the neighbor's house and said hello. When we came in we took all our wet stuff off in the bathroom. The boys got in the tub, playing in the water and bubbles. Scott came home and I went for a run. When I came home it was time for lunch and naps. I got the boys in bed and lay down with Mia the way I always do at naptime. I nursed her laying down the way I always do, her little body pulled into mine, and she clutched my hand with hers, holding my fingers -- the way she always does. We slept a couple of hours. When we awoke I realized, happily, that Scott was just about to come home. I had Mia in my lap and the boys on the bed by me and we read 4 1/2 stories. Scott got the boys dinner. We all had leftovers. The boys went out in their snowsuits again for 15 minutes or so. Scott got them ready for bed. We read scriptures together on our bed. As I was preparing to put Mia down, he was reading them their bedtime story. We had family prayer together. I tucked Mia in, and then went to sing to the boys with Scott. I lay down in Isaiah's crib with him and we sang for awhile and he laughed while we played with his binky (I'd bite it and then spit it back out in his face). Then I lay down with Benj and we sang some more. Scott had gone down to shower. He came up just as we were finishing. We said goodnight to them. And then Scott and I watched a movie tonight that made me think about the joy and deep beauty that fills my life. And I am talking about the whole package, the good and the bad. It increasingly becomes more beautiful to me. When Scott and I met and dated -- and then eventually married -- it was just the two of us. But both of us had the anticipation of those we would bring here, of the people that would continue us, be a part of us, make us complete. Now I have moments, when we're all together, that amid the noise or activity that we're doing, or conversation we're having or song we sing together with little voices chiming in -- that I often think to myself, "This is it. Look at these people. Look at what we've created. Isn't this beautiful?"

I felt renewed gratitude tonight for Scott and for this journey. I'm thankful to him for his desire to do this too, for being supportive of my dreams, for the way he is such a sweet and good father, for the sweetness of the man that he is. I feel grateful that we have chosen to have a family, to share this joy, to be together. And the best part is that if anyone asked me what I'd have if I could have anything I ever wanted, my life's dream or ambition? The best part is that I honestly could say I'm living it. Right now. I'd choose this.