The Bagel Shop

A weekly request from my kids for lunch is "pink cream cheese, mom, we want pink cream cheese!" It had been awhile since pink cream cheese...and so we went. My kids are 2 and 4 now; they can sit in a regular chair and eat and I can glance around...notice things I haven't been able to see for 4 years. Today it was a woman with her elderly mother, chatting over bagels and coffee. I thought to myself, "I will never see my mom as an old lady, never enjoy bagels and coffee and then help her to the car." Sometimes I simply forget my mom is actually gone for good...strange I realize, but it's like she's just going to pop back into my life and swoop up my kids...make my favorite meal, read to Dane and Glory, take me shopping, fold some laundry in her perfect way, braid Glo's hair in her perfect way, and surely give me some pointers on how to be the PTA President someday. I love the bits of me that are her - perfectionism in all things small and yet the ability to throw a bunch of papers in a pile on the counter for later. Life is too short people. The papers can wait...there are bagels to eat and kids to read to, dolls to play with, hide and seek, "the firefighter," Valentines to make, dance parties in the kitchen to attend. Just a little of our day...