Home Bodies

 
Life just keeps on ticking right away. 

It is so strange.

I just spent a little bit of time searching through my blog - quickly scanning and scrolling through the years. Turn by turn watching the lives of my children roll past.

Bam! Clara's not there.

Bam! Violet's not there.

Wham-o! and I'm looking at the sweet face of my baby Elsie who is just learning to sit by herself. My itty bitty Hazie with a pretty pink leotard and ballet slippers on and tiny Lilie's got my lipstick smeared across her lips and up to her ears.

We just bought our home. I walk through the pages and see all our hard work. All the love put into it and all the love felt within its walls.

I am overwhelmed.

I looked into the face of my darling baby Clara tonight. I kissed her little cheeks and blew raspberries on her busy little legs. She is just learning to squeal and laugh. Nels and I laugh with her. She is adorable. So often lately as I am holding her I snuggle her up just a little bit tighter and try to burn that moment so deeply into my memory that it won't ever leave. Because I know that this moment will pass. She will grow. So slowly that I won't notice, but so quickly that I'll hardly remember what happened in between. And I know I won't remember. There are vague glimpses in my mind of my other girls being so tiny, but they are not vivid. They are not clear. Just shadows.

And it hurts my heart just a little bit that I can't have it all -- all the time before me. To feel that past and to love the present. I want it all and it's not fair that I can't.

I watched my children tonight.

Hazel - right on the cusp of shooting into her "tweens" (such a stupid word, but it classifies those children that are no longer 'little'), stirring a pan of stroganoff on the stovetop. Dancing for a moment with her Daddy. She's getting so tall and so beautiful and amazes me daily with her goodness and willingness to help.

Lilie - sitting at the table folding bits of paper into swans for her younger sister. She is so meticulous. The handwriting papers that she brings home from school are so precise and clean. She finishes her math in no time flat. She laughs loud and makes up silly names for the crazy meal that Nels made the other night - "Stroganator" is my favorite.

Elsie lay on the couch her head propped on the armrest with the glow of the iPod illuminating her darling face, playing some silly bowling game. Sitting so quietly and happily. I tell her that she's so little and she laughs. I tell her that I love her and I'll love her even when she's big. She laughs again and says she loves me, too. "Elsie, can you stay little forever? Please?" Laughing, "No." Me, "Why not?" Giggling, "Because I want to grow big and be a mom."

Nels calls me from the kitchen, "Rachel, you'd better see this." He is standing at the foot of the couch. I walk over and see Elsie is still there, but Violet has crawled up next to her, laid down beside her - with their heads touching, she watches Elsie's game. She has the softest and sweetest little toddler body. Laying there in her diaper, snuggled next to her sister. I could kiss and cuddle that girl all day. She is what every toddler should be.

Why can't I have it all? Why can't I live in this moment and all the others, too? It's not fair.

I read through my words from yesteryear and can remember who I was then. I am amazed at how funny I am sometimes. Ha! I was so clever and it feels so effortless. Ha ha! Who is that girl? Where did she go? Will I ever see her again?

I miss Home.

I miss Idaho Falls. I miss my family and friends. But it's not really that. In most ways, I'm coming past that kind of "homesick" feeling. What I miss is HOME. This apartment isn't home. I am a home.maker. I want Home. It makes me feel lost and not quite certain what to do with myself without it.

I just hope that when I get to the end of whatever process we're in right now, I can also find the rest of me there waiting to be reunited.

I know that this post is all over the place. Somehow everything that I've written is connected, I'm just not sure where.

Maybe my blog is my way of finding all those different parts of myself, so I can see them and bring them all together eventually. Maybe it's my way of being able to have the past and the present. To be able to live in all these memories. for just a moment. And that's why I need to record them.