Monday Night Thoughts

As I sit here, my baby is next to me, batting at toys. She reminds me so much of a little panda - she doesn't have much to say, but she will sometimes start to growl and remind us that she IS the year of the Dragon. My little pink dragon baby.

I have such a backlog of pictures and memories I need to write down in this space, before I forget them. An annual family vacation to Lake Chelan. Pounds and pounds of blueberries picked, frozen and brought home from central Washington. Siu Jeun starting Preschool. My big girl losing her first tooth, at the hands of a dentist and under a lot of Novocain. A Chinese wedding for family friends where we ate for 3 hours, with so many different animals on the menu I think I actually repented that night for single-handedly eating a zoo. But right now...I just want to be in the moment.

My big girl is turning 7 next month, and starts 1st grade in two weeks. My boy is studying a Kindergarten curriculum twice a week with my mother and his cousin, as his Preschool experience. My baby is almost 7 months old. SEVEN MONTHS. It seems short, and it still seems like a life-time. I don't know how I earned all these lovely kids. They fill my hands and head and heart, and make me crazy and grateful...and crazy grateful. All at the same time. I watch their slow and steady progression through life, and silently cheer when I see them start to learn to make good choices. Or when I see my baby start to learn to tell a joke, or interact and make someone smile. It's like I can see them growing up right before my eyes. I've never reached the point, though, where I wanted them to slow down. To freeze time, right at the perfect moment. I just feel like a cheerleader - Keep Going! You can do it! They have so much joy in their eyes. Joy that is easiest to remember in moments like this, when the two vocal ones are asleep, Lo Gung is sitting on the couch studying, and my baby is growling and batting toys next to me. The house is silent. And life is good.

The end.