We were well past this little girl's bedtime when I snapped this shot in our bedroom at the house in Traverse City. She was entertaining us with her little smiles and coo's in the late evening sitting on the bed in between us lit only by the night side stand's table lamp.
Somehow, the little one has us figured out to a T... as all of our children have: the time when mommy and daddy first jump into bed is the "baby show hour". Like her siblings before her, Julie was conditioned in the womb to know about this small window of time each night. We started it with Joey as I would to place a radio into JL's waist band facing towards the belly so that he would hear WMUK's "Jazz Hour" each night and then I would read books or just spend time talking to him.
We did this with Jessamyn and Jocie too, but by the time we got to Julie... well, she got short changed a bit in this regard as we were both a little too tired by that time of night to do anything other than groan about our exhaustion and try to carry on some semblance of a meaningful conversation since this is our "adult time" that we get so little of these days. (JL would probably like to point out that I'm also not too fond of her when she's preggy.... what can I say? Maybe I'm just wired wrong... the whole pregnant female thing just doesn't jive well with me... and I'm sure I'll regret that at some point down the line... but, my hindsight has always been better than my eyesight).
And so here sits baby Julie... cute... and definitely becoming "the baby" of the family in every sense of the phrase. Maybe there is something mentally that we tag the last child as the 'caboose' of the group, or maybe we are better at being parents and know the ropes, or maybe we're just a little too short on patience, but we seem to be giving in to Julie's full "cuteness" factor in whole-hearted fashion. We dote on her every chance we get. We spoil her with attention and closeness to use (heck, she even sleeps in our room, whereas the other kids had to tolerate their own separated living quarters from the moment they arrived home from the hospital). We over-love her with as much affection as we can... and she turns it right around with her little smiles and shoots it right back at us.
When I look into those eyes, some sort of ache rolls through my head as I know... this is going to be the last time we get to have these moments with a child this age in our family. It feels like a series of waves in an ocean that originated by us and are started off on their perpetual journey towards the horizon never to look back again, and the last wave is just now leaving our side. The beginning of the end of us as parents and the daunting label of "empty nest" now seems not so far away... and that scares me.
Were I to have a wish that could be granted it would be to live an entire lifetime in each passing moment I'm able to spend with my children. If my heaven were to be anything of my dreams, it would be to go back and tour through an infinity filled with the time with our kids. I should be so lucky.
Well, swell... here are some of those moments captured in the only eternal medium I'm capable of generating... my little droplets of heaven in the physical form of pictures of what we love most.
jp
2 comments:
these pictures of Julie are soooooooooooooooooooooooocute. And yes there is something to the fact that the last child seems to get what ever they want. LOL I think that by the time they grow up and leave the nest you will realize yes your nest is empty but a new one begins when they have there kids. your empty nest becomes full againg with the laughter of grand kids. Love Nana:)
The pictures are as full of sentiment as your comments---just lovely.
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