I always enjoyed having you around.

My mom was visiting a while ago. She was having a good time watching Izak chase me and the vacuum around the house. He was flipping the switch off every time he got within reach. I would have to stop, and pretend groan "Oh no! Please turn it on again!" to which he would laugh, flip it on, let me sweep another 2 feet and turn it off again. On and off, on and off, for as long as it took me to collect the Newfoundland's hair balls from the nooks and crannies. Mom was laughing as she looked on, and then she said one of the most powerful things I've ever heard her say about her parenting experience,

"I always enjoyed having you girls around when you were little."

Really, Mom? Always? You had those years of fun and frustration, but still, you enjoyed us? Not a day has gone by that I don't think about that phrase... I always enjoyed having you around. Those words are a blessing to me. They now give me permission to relax and revel in this funny little times with my two under 2. The times when both Libby and Izak are crying, and I don't have enough arms to comfort them and I'm about to burst into tears too, I hear, "I always enjoyed having you around...". When Izak insists on blowing bubbles for 45 minutes straight, or obsessing about the neighbor's wheelbarrow turned upside down on his wood pile, exposing the precious, inviting wheel ~ look how it keeps going around and around! And when we're reading the book for the sixth time in a row, like he's never heard it before... something whispers "I always enjoyed having you around." At 4 a.m. when I'm nursing Liberty, half-asleep and she looks up and grins, or better yet, when she would cry from 1-3 a.m., sweaty from the pain of colic, down deep inside me I could feel the soothing words... "I always enjoyed you." When Izak cleans out my kitchen cupboards and drawers onto the floor, when I'm wiping ravioli off the window, when Libby fills her cloth diaper with poop, when I touch their skin and smell their hair, and change over the clothes because they've outgrown the last batch... "I always enjoyed having you around."

In the Old Testament fathers would often lay hands on the head of their oldest son and give them a blessing regarding their future. That sunny day in my living room I might as well have been kneeling before you, Mom, as you said those words because they have so profoundly enriched this destiny that God has called me to. I love you. Thank you.