Slices of our Day

We're on the front porch. I'm sitting on the top step with my feet a few steps down with Sophie on my lap. I have my arms around her waist and she is resting her hands on my forearms. We watch the cars going past, each one with a woosh. It is a warm, sunny day, but we're underneath two huge oak trees so we are bathed in shade. A cool breeze is blowing. The branches move with the wind and a hundred thousand leaves whisper their contentment. I can see four men at the far side of the school fields that are across from our house, they are sitting in folding chairs underneath some large trees. I see them there most days and today, as always, I wonder what they are dong there. I lean down to kiss her cheek and say quietly in her ear that it is a beautiful day.

She is quiet and peaceful for a change. My sweet bean is a bundle of energy, rarely sitting still for more than a few moments. Holding her on my lap is typically more of a greased pig wrestle than a cozy mother-daughter moment. That makes this moment that much more special for it's rarity. I had commented this morning to Neil that she is getting so big, relatively speaking, of course, because she's still small by most standards. And right now I am acutely aware that not only is she getting bigger but more mature. In a nine month old sort of way.

It is these moments that I want to freeze. We have thousands of photos of all of the special moments in our daughter's life. Her first bath, birthdays, holidays, trips to see family or special outings with friends. But it is these quiet, unassuming and typically undocumented days that are the ones that I really want to remember. When I think back on this time, it will not be the big moments that cause nostalgia. No, it will be these tiny slices of our day to day reality that bring tears to my eyes.