Remember, my Rip Van Winkles

Remember when your hair stood in a mohawk fringe after being raked through with a handful of hummus?

Remember how you chortle with a conquerer’s joy when you climb into your small rocking chair to stand, hands gripping the back, rattling the rocking mountain with your energy?

Remember how you turn around and negotiate your way back down from chair to floor, your 10-month-old brain performing a marvel of mature mental acrobatics to figure out the puzzle?

Remember the way you wave with a clump of fist?

Remember the way you tilt your head against my shoulder and give a sweet, winsome smile to another adult?

Remember the hugs you give me in the middle of the night when I find you standing in your sleeping bag of a blanket, gripping the bars of the crib, face pressed as close to the freedom of the doorway as the wooden slats will allow?

Remember.

Remember the way your hair tangles in a nimbus around your head, and I spend moments of gentle strokes in the morning tucking strands back into place so I can uncover your eyes?

Remember when you wake with night terrors, body rigid, mind and mouth yelling “NO!”, and you finally quiet when I tell you about a super big juicy booger lurking just inside your nose?

Remember when you taste the booger and pronounce it good?

Remember how we end our day, one-upping each other with “I love you more thans” and I walk away from your room with spaghetti strands of love following in my wake from your bed?

Remember how you told me your heart is so full of Jesus that you store your extra love in your jewelry box for safe-keeping?

Remember how you save goldfish crackers and swedish fish and jellybeans for later “so we can play pretend with them and do their voices?”

Remember how we played coffee shop, you as yourself, and me as an angel dressed up in wings of shoelaces, enjoying water, dried apricots and chocolate covered cherries together?

Remember the way you run downstairs in the morning and shout “Mama!” when you find me, breaking open my morning like it’s the first morning ever?

Remember.

I command both of you: Remember.  Press these people you are today deep into the grooves on your fingers, because someday, when you’re the beautiful, amazing, mountain-conquering women you’ll become tomorrow, I want to be able to pick up your hand, press a fingerprint to glass and study it to revisit  these beautiful, amazing mountain-conquering girls that you are today.  Remember, I beg you, in a way deeper than this snippet of a blog post, that I love the you of today–the hummus slathering, booger-eating, love-bursting yous.  I love you in a way that, if I didn’t love the promised you of tomorrow even more, I’d keep you captive in today forever, my two Rip Van Winkles of wonder.

I’m grateful to Five Minute Fridays for making me pause to remember these moments!  Join the community of writers who take five minutes each Friday morning to share one another’s prompt-inspired writing.