They're there if you look

Sometimes the crush of daily life and the dullness of routine obscures the fact that my children are growing. Fast. But once in a while, if I am quiet enough, I am privileged to watch a memory crystallizing before my very eyes:

I am sitting here on the couch. Next to me is a fat beagle, smelling of outside and rain, snuggled in as close to me as she can be, snoring. At my feet is my 7-year-old boy, clearly delighting in the opportunity to teach his older brother how to play chess. Across from him is said 14-year-old sibling, lanky frame stretched across the entire room (or so it seems), one foot in manhood and the other, in childhood -- and in this moment, reveling in the excuse to be silly and young. Rain hits the skylights, a comforting sound broken only by chuckles and "Hey, that one can't move that way..." and "What can this guy do?".

Just an ordinary day -- a dreary gray one, in fact. The world is a mess, the laundry needs folding, a gazillion writing deadlines loom, I can't shake this ear infection, and a million little things are wrong. But here, in this moment, everything feels utterly,

wonderfully

perfect.