Can't Help Falling In Love

The day is full of distractions.  Like when you tell the kids you're leaving in five minutes, which is five minutes later than you need to be leaving, and they decide that is the time to let the dogs in out of the rain.  Or when you're planning lessons fifteen minutes before you should be leaving for class because you fell asleep the night before watching Duck Dynasty, when you should have been planning, and your son decides to turn off the computer to get your attention and the document slips into the dark unknown where all unsaved documents go. Distractions that pull your affections in a million directions, often away from the ones who mean the most.  Enter vacation, more specifically, a week at the beach.  It's this hiatus from the daily grind that allows me to fall in love with my family all over again.

Stop and smell the roses......

My son lags behind on the path, holding a translucent green tube around his waist.  Every now and then it slips, pulling his one-size-too-big swimsuit down a bit with it.  He pauses, hoists the tube higher, and awkwardly tugs his swimsuit up.  I pause and wait.  A and her dad wait for no one on their way to the beach.  C dawdles, examining the sand on the brick pathway, tufts of shaggy hair sticking out from his head.  Too bad I didn't have time to cut his hair before we left.  He finally reaches me and grabs my hand, falling into step with my pace.  "Mommy, God made new dinosaurs after the old ones died. Did you know a Protoceratops...." He talks without pausing, rattling off dinosaur names and facts that would tongue-tie even the most articulate orator, but he is four and his blue eyes widen in innocent wonder as he ponders the magnificent magnitude of creation and the genius of the Creator.  "Is God everywhere?  Are dinosaurs in heaven?"  Our daily quarter-mile trek to the beach from the house becomes a place where we wrestle with big questions and take time to notice small things.  We end up with more questions than we answer.  No "hurry ups" just me and C holding hands slowly meandering along the path.  I catch a glimpse into the sweet, curious nature of my boy, a gift that I miss or push aside for the greater accomplishments of clean laundry and homemade dinners.  I'm reminded of the better thing.

Laughter is the best medicine.....

I relax in a beach chair and read.  I glance up from a page to see a man floating in the surf with two children who look remarkably like mine.  His arms link through each of their water rings and three heads bob happily in the waves, laughter roaring in with the surf. The sun glints off the fluorescent pink water ring that my husband has wedged around his waist; my daughter's pink-rimmed bucket hat sits tightly on his head.  When my laughter subsides, I fall a little more deeply in love.

Love makes the world go round.....

"Mommy, I love you!"  "I love you, too, Pumpkin."  A reaches for my hand.  We float quietly on the Gulf.  Her head rests nestled on the fold of her elbow, her cheek tilted up to the sun.  Her blonde hair curls wildly around her face, kept out of her eyes by the pink goggles she wears pushed up onto her head.  Suddenly, I see her, not as a baby but as a girl who loves dolphins and tigers and says, "seriously," and I gasp.  The sweet preschooler from two years ago is now a little girl flying into her tween years. Gone are the rounded cheeks and baby teeth;she's a big girl who requests "me" time in her room without the interruptions of her brother.  I brush back a curl and try to shoo away time or at least slow its pace.  Seven plus two is nine and then ten.  I pull her float near, trying to keep her close but know she will soon float away, eager to find her own way.  In the quiet, perhaps she senses my thoughts and longs, too, to capture this moment for a while longer, lingering in its knowledge that she is growing up.  Her voice breaks the silence, "Mommy?"  "Mmmhmm?"  "This is the best day ever!"

We have seven days of "best days ever."  Moments where we steal away from the rest of the world, isolating ourselves from the news, the chaos, and the stress.  Connecting without wires, laughing without reservation, relaxing without guilt.  We arrive harried and leave falling more deeply in love with God, with His creation, and with each other.