precious moments.

I had a grand finale weekend with the girls who I have spent the last year and a half caring for.  It would be the last weekend of caring for them for a long time, possibly ever.  With each one I was given a precious moment.  Moments so much more precious than the ones depicted in the over-produced porcelain figurines by the same name.

With Victoria, it was after her much-needed nap, when she wasn't quite ready to get up yet.  She cuddles into my lap in the rocking chair.  I feel her breathing get heavier, slower, as her eyes close again, then open.  Her little body resting on mine.  That half hour, whispering to one another between short bouts of her sleep and mine, is one I hold dear.

Before she started kindergarten, Katherine would come downstairs after rest time, leap into my lap on the kitchen stool, and beg to help me with the crossword puzzle in the RedEye that I so faithfully completed.  This weekend, we shared that time again.  She, guessing crazy words for the simplest clues, and I, trying my best to guide her to the correct answer, were able to mostly complete yet another crossword puzzle.  Halfway through, Katherine snatches the pen from the counter and scrawls across the newspaper page, in her kindergarten all-caps handwriting:  "I LUVE ERIN," then tosses the pen down and skips to the bathroom.  Sometimes I feel so undeserving of this love - the kind that kisses me goodnight even after I've lost my patience.  Sigh.  The love of a child is priceless.

Audrey is a troubled soul.  Artistic, abstract, and wonderful, she is often hard to figure out.  She keeps quiet and her thoughts are only hers.  Walking home from art class one afternoon in September, she just stops walking, looks around, and sits down, leaning on a tree trunk.  I smile, take a seat next to her, and ask "whatcha doin?"  Her reply came several silent minutes later:  "Just thinking," she says as she pushes herself back up and starts running toward home.  This weekend, she let me into her little mind for even just a moment as she told me about her paintings - why she chose the colors she did, how she was feeling when she painted them, and what they meant.  If a glimpse is all I get, I'll take it.

These girls will forever and always have my heart.