My Children

“For me, it was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings. And My Conclusion Is, Since I Had Been in Very Good Terms With Anne, That Most Parents Don’t Really Know Their Children.” — Otto Frank

Every single day, at some point, I look at each of my children and think to myself “I am the luckiest woman alive.” I love these children of mine so much, it takes my breath away. Truly.

I look at Matthew and he’s all arms and legs and no more baby cheeks and I marvel at how beautiful he is, inside and out. Time is flying. Absolutely flying.

I look at Gabe and he’s still got his baby face and his voice hasn’t changed and he hasn’t had his growth spurt yet…but you can almost see it coming. I know one morning he’s going to wake up with a deep voice and grow six inches and look like a man. I just stare at him and think about how special he is, how gorgeous he is, how perfectly Gabe he is.

I look at Olivia and I just swell with pride. She is so beautiful, so loving, so happy. She doesn’t have it easy in this life, yet you would never know it. She is the sun personified.

I talk to them about their days, we share highs and lows at dinner, we discuss friends and girlfriends and homework and sports and everything. But then they’ll say something that makes me think I don’t know them at all. There is so much about my children that I don’t know, even though I feel like I know so much. I would love to be a fly on the wall and follow them around school. I would love to get inside their heads and truly know what their thinking. But I can’t and I shouldn’t. That’s how it’s supposed to be. They’re becoming their own person, thinking their own thoughts, dreaming their own dreams.

It’s so mystifying watching them grow up. It really is. One day they are your babies, depend on you for everything, and then the next minute, poof, they’re teenagers. It really does fly by. But I am so enjoying watching them grow up into these wonderful people they’re becoming. I’m trying not to worry about the piling laundry, the dirty floors and the constant dirty dishes and, instead, be so very thankful that I get to mother these three beautiful and miraculous human beings.

It’s difficult to put into words how it feels…being their mother really feels like a miracle.