Slowin' Down

I can admit that I've been letting myself get overwhelmed these last few months with everything under the sun and today I let myself slow down.

I let my sweet girls play in the bath while I watched them and reveled in their giggles. I brushed their hair and teeth, lotioned those little legs and arms, and searched through loads of clean laundry to find the coveted Little Mermaid pajamas. And for this I was rewarded. These sweet girls let me rock them both (together) for all of five whole songs - the same five songs I sang to them each when they were infants as I'd nurse them, stare at them, and take in their sweet baby smell. Ana, snuggled up on my chest with her long legs wrapped around my waist. Maddie, not quite as calm but still affording me a snuggle here and there. As I sang to my babies and turned my head from one to the other taking in their yumminess, I felt myself slow down for the first time in months.

There's nothing in this world quite like your own little girls' fresh-out-of-a-bath baby smell. And I'll (shamefully) admit I don't take it in quite as often as I should, quite as often as we all deserve. Maddie's inability to sit still and Ana's long, long legs took me to the days when I could fit them in the nook of my chest. Some days it feels like a lifetime ago but today it felt like it was just yesterday. And so I'm forced to remember something none of us should ever forget - that these days won't be here forever and I owe it to myself, I owe it to my girls, to just slow down.