Monday, August 29, 2011

I don't want every day to become everyday

Once upon a time, I was an English teacher. One of the very practical things I learned was the difference between every day and everyday. "Every day" refers to the frequency of an event. "Everyday" means commonplace.

People have said that when your kids are young, the days are long and the years are short. This. is. so. true.  I want take a moment and preserve the days when my kids were young.

Every day, I go into Coralie's room to get her up.




Then she goes into Madeline's room to get her up.

Here's the happy baby!

Coralie says, "Good morning, sugar bum! How did you sleep?"

Madeline giggles and reaches for Coralie. Each girl gets dressed, and then we eat breakfast.

 Here, it's scrambled eggs with cheese and ham. And bread. Not even toasted, the poor girls.
Then the girls play in Coralie's room. Coralie calls it "making a mess" because they dump out her cubes full of toys. Then Madeline starts eating on one of Coralie's toys, and Coralie starts stuffing junk into her purses. It's exhilarating play.




 These are from a few days ago so the outfits are different, but the play is the same.



One day, the girls will roll out of bed on their own and come into the kitchen fully dressed in their goth outfits and snarl at me as I set bowls out for them on the counter. Then they will chew loudly and grab their purses and breeze out the door on their way to school. As I nurse my wounds of being ignored, I will remember the days when we played together and spent all morning making messes in Coralie's bright, happy room.

3 comments:

  1. Wait. Back up. I'm completely blown away by the whole get dressed part. That's not something we do around here - we're complete bums.

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  2. May every day be full of moments to remember. One day late, I found the quote that goes with this blog post:
    "When you parent, you fall in love with a person who is always changing into someone else, and who you know will leave you." Elizabeth Lesser

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  3. The memories you are making every day will serve you well. And when your girls have their own girls to parent, you will remember easily those days that swept by so quickly and wish every day was an everyday of days gone by. Except for all the everyday work that goes with it all. In other words, your post made me cry, and then laugh about the scene of the girls going off to school. Yes, I remember.

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