Your Love is Better than Chocolate

I promise, one day I’ll get used to it.

Actually, that is a blatant lie.

I will never get used to it.

What I will do, probably today in fact, is ignore the sink full of dirty dishes that something living just scampered out of, and turn a blind eye to the pile of dirty laundry so large I can carve a cave into it for shelter, and then I will sit in the corner with my two babies in my lap. They will be quiet and affectionate and understanding, and won’t whine to please, Mom, let me go, I want to karate chop something, or whine because the view hasn’t changed in awhile, and she is utterly bored and demands stimulation for her growing, growing brain, but they will let me hold and kiss and slobber all over them without complaint.

And then, because I refused to do anything, Time will stop and I can sit there for as long as I like, and twenty years later, my two children will still be six-years- and six-months-old, respectively, and I will have had my fill of being a mother of a six-year- and a six-month-old, respectively, and then we can pick up where we left off, dirty laundry and all, and continue on our way, and Bug will be six-years-old for another six months, and Bean will be six-months-old for another two weeks, and I will be ready, then, to have a seven-year-old and a one-year-old, twenty years from now.

Because if I had twenty years to experience the way my Bug smells after kicking and punching imaginary foes into submission, and twenty years to experience the sheer, unadulterated glee and wonder shining from my Bean’s new and ever-amazed eyes, and twenty years to experience the exact weight of two little first-grader arms around my neck granting me a blissful hug, however brief and obtrusive it may be to his busy, busy agenda of sharpening his kung fu skills, and twenty years to experience the tiny pressure Bean’s tiny fist makes when pulling, feeling, tasting my hair, and twenty years to experience the timbre of my son’s voice and six-year-old lisp as he tells me about dinosaurs, or volcanoes, or outer space, and twenty years to experience the intoxicating aroma of Bean’s skin after a bath, and twenty years to experience the excited expression on Bug’s face when I pick him up from school, eager to see me again, or maybe his baby sister again, or maybe his coin collection again, and twenty years to experience Bean’s toothless grin, so easy to come by, so unabashedly shared, usually in company of a squeal or a coo or a wet and delicious spit bubble…

If I had twenty years to memorize the way my children are today, then it will hardly be enough time, but I can be sort of okay with it, if I can have another twenty years to memorize the way they will be tomorrow.