naps in the summertime

The Fourth of July weekend has come and gone and it seems to have taken our slow June days right along with it.  I swear it's like this every year - as soon as the 4th is over, summer just scoots on by in the blink of an eye and leaves me grieving and a little grumpy.  July is filled with travel and baseball games and so much fun in store, but June and its simple days at home with breakfast smoothies at the kitchen island, new routines and morning chores, library crafts and new books, freezy pops and trampoline hangs and picnics will forever be my favorite.  Someday, I want to read this blog and recall just how sweet this last month has been.  I feel so grateful to be home and did my very best to not take a minute of it for granted.  

Gosh, these kids of mine leave me breathless.  Mila is in this really sweet stage where she can enter her own little world of play and entertain herself for hours.  She talks to herself with her stuffies and can completely drown out the world around her.  I watched her at the pool today, ducking her Sofia mermaid doll in and out of the water like a dolphin, walking through the water amidst dozens of kids, completely oblivious to everything around her.  I watched her mesmerized, and remembered Cruz at this age, too, his chubby tan legs and white head of hair, making motor noises with his cars in that way only a little boy can do.  And just like that, he's six and riding down all those waterslides over and over again, all by himself, big and proud and full of simple dreams of tropical sno after swimming and games of dead man with his favorite neighbor friends.  

Naptime is my favorite time of day, not because I earn an hour or two of quiet, but because it's my daily invitation to pause, be still, and drink in all those details I'm so often guilty of missing.  Mila can be a pistol at naptime, sometimes trying to con her way out, today with a suitcase full of "things for a movie night", but if I persist, her favorite dream blankie and a promise to snuggle and rub her back always lures her in.  Mila only sleeps under her big comforter for "long naps" (which means bedtime in Mila's world), and prefers her muslin dream blanket for "short naps."  I cover her up and then lay beside her, smooth out her soft, snarly curls, and sing her Come Thou Fount.  Sometimes, I let my mind wander, but not today.  Today, I feel how soft the space is between her ear and her neck, notice her perfectly smooth, tan arm, and watch her lips pierce together and look just as they did when she was a newborn.  I sing her her favorite song, surprised that my own voice, which I've always thought to be a little off, has lulled her to sleep for over three and a half years.  Soon, I start to feel that achingly sweet heartbreak of being a mom to a little person who grows up and won't always need me to lay beside her at naptime.  But today she does, so I stay in this moment with her for a little bit longer.