This Is My Life

I had one of those moments today where my whole life was reduced to exactly what was going on at that minute. There was nothing else.

This can be a bad thing. Sometimes it comes to me with shoulder-sagging force that this bowl of rice chex-with-milk dropped over the edge of the high chair is my life. Or that my purse (ok, truthfully, diaper bag) with crushed animal crackers and crinkled up dried leaves at the bottom somehow epitomizes me. And I can't see beyond it.

Today was different.

We sit all in the same chair--I hold Edmund on my lap and Charlie comes asking if there's room for him next to us. Charlie, with his perpetually marker-stained fingertips, smells vaguely like the banana he just ate. And Edmund, who I've just retrieved from his bed after a nap, has his typical fly-away troll hair in the back along with some matted-with-applesauce crusty hair in the front.

Edmund holds a sippy cup of milk. He offers it to Charlie and to me, seeing what silly response he'll get from us. Then he laughs. Or, Charlie hides his face behind my shoulder and pops it up yelling, "Peek-a-boo!" Then Edmund imitates this seventy more times. Then Edmund laughs. He laughs at everything Charlie does. He laughs at everything I do. And yes, Edmund laughs at everything Edmund does.

"Tee-hee-hee!" Yes, that's really what his laugh sounds like. "Tee-hee-hee!"

When he gets tired of laughing and playing peek-a-boo, he sticks his thumb in his mouth and puts his head on my shoulder. A little rest.

Then he offers me his milk again.

Johnny is asleep over on the couch and Edmund notices this at some point and says, "Dohnny. Seepin'. Blanket." Then he puts his head back on my shoulder.

And all in a rush it comes to me. This is my life. Right here. The world shrinks down to this unremarkable moment on the brown chair in my living room.

Marvelous, isn't it?