THANKFUL.

yesterday i met a woman at a park who was chasing around her 2.5 year old son while her 4.5 month old baby girl was lounging in her car seat.  looking at her 4.5 month old daughter, i couldn't even recall when holden was that small and that still, i couldn't remember the time when he would lay there docily just exploring the world with his eyes (perhaps because he never was that still, he was always a baby that was on the move).  i told the woman this and she said yes it all goes by so fast and you can't slow it down.  she was quitting her job at the end of june because she felt she had missed out on so much of her son's life, that she had missed so many of his firsts, and that she would never get that back.  she told me that she didn't want to make that same mistake, regretting the same things with her new baby daughter.  and i felt thankful for this stranger reminding me how lucky i am.   thankful that i get to spend each waking minute with holden.  thankful that i haven't missed a moment yet.

last night, a light breeze filled with the spirit of summer drifted in through our open screen doors and when holden woke up for a night feeding, instead of laying beside him and letting him nurse back to sleep, dustin and i couldn't resist waking him up so we turned on the lights and played with him.  under the soft glow of the beside lamp, we jumped on the bed, read a few books, made animal noises, asked for and received a lot of kisses from holden (he just started giving kisses on thursday!), and had some family cuddle time as the curtains flapped in the warm wind and our hearts overflowed with love.  i'm not sure it can get any better than this.