Finally Friday!

I am ready to start my weekend.  Not that I have any great plans.  In fact, I don't really have plans to do much of anything at the moment but sometimes that is good.  This is one of those times.  I seem to spend so much time running from one thing to the next that I rarely have time to just be, and I miss those days.  I'd like to be able to clean my house at a leisurly pace instead of the frenetic pace that I usually use to perform such tasks.  I take pride in my home and in the way that I tend to it and I enjoy the process in keeping it up, and keeping it clean.  I love the look and smell of a clean and tidy house.  I'd like it a whole lot better if it could stay that way for more than a few minutes, but such is the price of living.
I'd like to snuggle up on the couch in my pajamas with Bella in hers under the warmth of a worn in blanket and read books together.  Books that she is old enough to read to herself but still likes to have me read to her sometimes.  I'd like to make a nice warm cup of tea for me and hot chocolate for her and put it in our matching cranberry colored spatter ware mugs, adult sized for me and child sized for her.  We'd wrap our hands around the mugs smooth surface and enjoy the warmth that spreads from the mug to our hands.  I'd look at Bella and she'd look up at me and smile in that way that she does that says she is enjoying just being with me and being like me. 
Later, after a shared lunch Bella will know that she needs to lie down and 'take a little rest'.  And she will.
While she rests, Michelle and I will settle ourselves in the family room with the blinds closed, a scented candle lit, a big bowl of popcorn to share and put on a movie that we have seen a dozen or so times before.  We'll laugh at the same spots that we've laughed before, maybe say a line or two along with our favorite character, cry like we've done each time before and be saddened by the fact that the ending still has not changed. And I will love every minute of it. 
I feel sometimes as though these times are fleeting, measured and the sand in my hourglass is quickly running out.  I need to stop and savor each and every second of my precious time here with my family.   While we are together.   Not that I am planning on going anywhere, or anything happening, but we grow and change, children grow up and their needs change.  I've seen that already.  I'd had hoped to be able to keep us all under one roof, I knew that was not reasonable.  But I could hope.  The truth is, I know that they need to move on and grow at their time and pace.  For now, I hold on tight and as change happens I will learn to accept it and take what I can get.