Changes With Time

Seven years ago it wasn’t unusual to find me each morning surrounded by 3 warm, wiggly boy bodies.  As soon as my boys would wake up they would burrow under the covers with me.  Sometimes, if I had been up all night nursing. I would put cartoons on the T.V. so I could catch a few more minutes of sleep.  It didn’t matter if there was squirming and chattering, I was so exhausted, I slept through most of the noise and motion.  Unless of course it involved little bodies heaving themselves up on my chest, nose placed to nose and big brown eyes imploring mine to get up for feeding time.

Other times I would be less sleep deprived and there would be minutes stretching into half hours when we would snuggle and giggle and chatter.  I would bury my nose in little boy necks and try to lock the fresh scent of boyhood in my memory.  I would Eskimo kiss and butterfly kiss.  I would hold soft, warm bodies close, until little boy bodies heaved themselves up on my chest, nose placed to nose and big brown eyes implored mine to get up and feed them.

Nowadays it is different.  There is a little girl who joins me in bed in the mornings.  We snuggle nose to nose.  I bury my nose in her neck and breathe in her sweet little girlness. She tells about her dreams and I listen.  We giggle and tickle. Sometimes I close my eyes and rest with her soft body next to mine. Until she wraps her arms around my neck, places her nose on mine and implores me with her big blue eyes to get up for breakfast.

Only once in awhile do I find a bigger boy body climbing into bed with me to enjoy some talk time.  I wrap my arm under those big boy shoulders and bury my nose into the hair on his head.  I breathe in big boy (hopefully washed the night before) freshness. I miss my cuddly, squirming, chubby, fresh little boys.  I miss all those arms in legs hitting me across the nose.  I miss the child sleeping diagonally in the center of the bed with toes anchored in my back.  I miss being surrounded and hemmed in by my sweet little boys.  So, it is with great joy that I receive the one who silently slips into my room and under the covers to have time to snuggle and talk.  Eventually though they tire of the talk and snuggling and look into my eyes with the ever present ravenous look of a hungry and never full boy.

*To every young mother, I implore you, take many moments in the mornings to snuggle your children.  Before you know it they won’t be climbing up into your bed, wrapping their chubby arms around your neck and smothering you in their sweetness.  Take each and every day and relish in the times of adoration, they flee before we can catch our breath.