Life, just life

Last week we had so many sunny, clear breaks in the weather that the kids and I went out walking every day. I could smell spring; it starts early here. I am a Montana girl at heart and I will always love winter, true winter, but there is something so optimistic and unutterably sweet about these green January days with their freshness and damp earth smells, life right there at the surface with all the promise of blooming soon.

So we walked, the three of us. We walked through our quiet neighborhood and up the hill where there is a view of Puget Sound, and Suzannah held my left hand as I pushed the stroller with my right. We stopped to touch pine cones and dry crunchy leaves. I don't always feel like the most present mama when we stay home inside all day -- there are always a million little things tugging at my attention. But when we remove all that, when it's just me with my babies in the world, I feel such deep contentment, such unencumbered joy. I notice things. The world is huge and new every day, and even though I suppose I am living a very simple life right now, I can't imagine wanting anything else because what I have is more than enough.

On Friday afternoon, Kyanne came over with coffee and held Isaac while I threw myself into one of my organizing projects (boy, will she tell you I know how to have a party). I pulled out a couple of huge Rubbermaid bins filled with Suzannah's baby clothes and sorted through them, planning to give them to someone who can hopefully make better use of them than I can right now. I haven't looked at them since I packed them away an impossibly long time ago, but touching each little onesie and pajama sleeper and play outfit and dress brought her babyhood rushing right back to me. One striped pink sleeper reminded me of when she learned to sit up by herself; it also reminded me of Sunday nights when I'd get her dressed for bed and head over to Kyanne's house where we'd watch Desperate Housewives and I'd nurse my baby to sleep on the couch. There was the red-and-white outfit with the little roses; Suzannah wore that when her great-grandfather held her for the first time, in his hospital bed, when she was eleven weeks old. There was the little jumper she wore in our first family photo.

I saved a small pile purely for keepsakes, the way my mother saved some of my baby dresses. I almost wanted to save it all, because in those brief moments of sorting through them, I had my baby girl again. (And those brief moments were juxtaposed with my three-year-old jumping in one of the empty containers, yelling "Mommy, I HAVE A BOAT!" It was rather disorienting.)

But I also have pictures and journals full of these totally ordinary moments I want to remember, and I think we can all use the occasional reminder not to attach so much importance to what is really just a bunch of stuff in a closet. And maybe it's partly that I can't tear myself away from stories about Haiti right now, but it seems ridiculous to sit here and fret about whether or not I'm going to miss a particular cotton sleeper that my daughter wore when she was four months old. (It seems ridiculous to fret about a lot of things I happen to fret about, when it comes right down to it.) Besides, how could I really wish my girl back to babyhood when the little girl she is is at the very top of my life's blessings? I can separate my memories from the objects themselves, I think, and they're not going to do anyone any good packed away in Rubbermaids in a closet, anyway. Storing them away doesn't serve to make my memories any richer.

In other totally mundane news, yesterday I left both kiddos home with Matt for an hour while I went to get my hair trimmed. (Note to those who know about my HAIR ATTACKS -- I waited a WHOLE WEEK to do this. Normally when it occurs to me that I have to cut my hair, whether it's a teeny little trim or a major hack job, it has to happen THAT DAY. My mother will tell you that I used a bathroom pass to get out of class once when I was in the ninth grade so I could sneak down to the office and call her at work and BEG HER to make me an appointment. See? I have learned SO MUCH PATIENCE since the ninth grade.) When I came home, Suzannah reached up to touch it. I'm always a little nervous about how she'll react when I change anything, probably because my mother also likes to tell the story of how she came home with a perm when I was about Suzannah's age and I said, "Mommy, TAKE IT OFF." But my daughter said, "I like your hair, Mommy. It smells good." I tucked her hair behind her ears and told her I liked her hair, too (even though I am barely allowed to touch it). Then she placed her soft little hands on my cheeks and said, "I like your cheeks, too." She leaned in to kiss me, and I felt, as I so often do in these moments, that this exactly where my heart begins and ends.