Babies??

Pregnant . . . . ???  Nope, I am sitting here tonight avoiding doing my parent conferences forms contemplating my conferences forms and was drawn into looking at old family photos.  As I flipped through them on the computer I was shocked. The first thought that came to my mind was, "Where did my babies go?" I got teary eyed looking at photos of my sweet baby girl striking a pose, wearing a tiara and ponytail on Easter just because she can, singing into a kalidescope, and just being the sweetest thing on the planet. 

And my baby boy being the master water slider, wearing glasses,
playing with phones (his obsession when he was little), and being the cutest thing ever. 

I thought to myself, the chubby faces are recognizable, they spark memories of when those pictured were captured, but my babies . . . are gone.  Today I have a budding actress and singer who loves school, her teacher, learning, being dramatic, her friends, writing stories, being on the computer, being silly, fashionable, and texting on her ipad.  Today my son is always moving (well I guess that hasn't changed much), building lego structures, reading, studying, working on endangered animal projects, writing stories, learning how to play chess, and playing sports.  Gone are the days of when holding them was easy and I could carry them to bed without breaking a sweat, diapers, sweet baby smell, and laughter or the silly things toddlers say.  Gone is the wonderment over the simple things like nerf guns and fake phones that sing mickey mouse clubhouse songs. Gone are the days of innocence that Mickey Mouse is a real person and not just a guy in a costume and Tinkerbell really has fairy dust to make you fly.  With that realization came a heaviness and a longing to have them small again.  To cuddle them and chase them around as they toddled instead of walked or ran, to push them on the swing because they didn't know how to do it on their own yet, to see them push around in their flinstone cars because they can't ride bikes yet.

But as I sit here and look around at my surroundings I am struck by the things I see.  A chapter book about believing in fairies, imaginary lego structures that only my boy can decipher what they are, a conversation that made me laugh out loud about school and their friends, Grace's "happy face", Ben literally playing soccer indoors, wanting to be tucked in like a sandwich, mac&cheese, or a chicken taco (its a Dell thing people I can't explain it), my daughter's love of picking out the perfect accessory and the fact that she still sits at her Rapunzel vanity to get ready, my son crawling up next to me and my daughter with her head on my shoulder. 

Maybe my babies aren't as far away as I thought they were . . .