I Know What I'm Gonna Look Like When I Grow Up Mommy

"Miss your bubby?" I asked the girls on the way to school today.  It had been a quiet ride and I wanted to break the silence.  In fact, the house was a bit quieter since Tonton left.  The two short weeks he spent at home prompted the sound of sisters giggling as they once again shared a room and laughter as kids jammed Rock Band each afternoon their brother picked them up from  school .

"Yeah" Sommer answered, "I miss him a lot."
"It's hard to imagine growing up and one day not living with each other, isn't it?"
"I'm going to visit Tony, Hope and Sommer all the time when I leave home" Peyton said.  "Ahem, what about us?" I joked, pretending to be crushed.  "I'll visit you every day" Sommer squealed.

What will it be like?  Will they come every weekend to play Scrabble and accuse us of cheating when we beat them? Will I bust out the good wine and ask them to help me learn how to use the latest technology because "I don't know why they have to make it so complicated nowadays!"  Will they sit at the table smiling at us bouncing babies on our knees cooing, "dance, dance, dance"?  Will they give us instructions on how to care for our grandkids, warning "whatever you do, DO NOT give them sugar!"

 Kids get older, but some things never change

• Spontaneous hugs and kisses from sweet girls who want a hug back and even from 18 year old boys who just want you to know they love you "one more time"
• Presents made by little hands that knock on your bedroom door too early in the morning, excited to see the excitement in your eyes.
• The sound of anything followed by the word mommy. 
• Hearing the words "I love you" before or after any other words are uttered, and sometimes when you least expect it.

I remember playing the "I love you" game with my dad growing up.  Me: I love you.  Dad: I love you more.  Me: I love you more because you only loved me for part of your life and I've loved you from the day I was born.  Dad: I love you more because you've only loved me for part of my life and I've loved you all of yours.  Now, we all do this with our children and with one another.  Text to my sister Bet: K, see you soon.  Love you.  Text from Bet: k, love you more.  

 Mother's Day 2011 with half of our children.  It was the beginning of a perfect day on a perfect weekend.  Or, as Hope put it, "some of the best weekends we've ever had."

Pushing 40 is better than pushing up daisies

I'm 39.  There, I said it out loud.  I sat in the holding room of the Manila airport waiting for the flight back home.  I don't know why I was thinking of my age.  I remember looking at 30 something year old women as a teenager and dreading the day I was that old.  I wanted to be worldly and witty, like the cast of thirtysomething, but only at the age of 18.   Now I am that old and I look around and realize I will one day be middle aged.  I looked around for some 40something year old women and wondered if I'd look like that one day, then wondered what that was. They looked happy.  They looked ... like they had seen too many things. 
I've never been afraid of getting older before.  I don't think I'm afraid now, not so much the physical part of aging anyway.  I listened to their conversations.  They were more substantial than mine; less about dreams and plans, more about family and life already lived.  Am I being overly dramatic? Will I stop talking about my dreams one day?  I can feel my heart pounding.  I don't want to settle, to sit around and talk about what I did and what I could have done; what went well and what I wished I could have avoided, no. 
Maybe I'm feeling this way because I have time sitting in my room healing, not being busy, not occupied enough to forget there are things I don't want to think about.  Like wasting time.  Like wasting life. A friend says it might be a sign that I need to slow down and look at things a little longer. The OCD part of me wants to start a bucket list, but the flesh and blood Boni part of me thinks that's really truly overly dramatic.  Still, I can't help but think of the things I want to do still.  There are big things like I want to write a children's book.  There are semi-big dreams like traveling to Greece.  Then there are the dreams you can't control like I want to see my children grow up to be kind and successful men and women.  I want to always wake up in the morning excited to go work.  I want to feel loved and give love each day that I have breathe in me.
I don't want to think of the nevers, who wants to dwell on the unpleasant?  A friend says it's our experiences who make us who we are.  I'll be whoever it is I was who endured whatever it was that came my way... no matter what.  Perhaps that's what both frightens and fascinates me.