Music to my ears
NS February 11th, 2009
Yesterday I gave both kids a long bath in the evening. They both love the water and it gives us something to do in the restless hour or so before Daddy gets home, when we’ve run out of steam. TNC hopped in, happily swirling the bubbles around, and I put TNB in his baby bath seat; mesmerized, as ever, by his sister’s every move. I realised I didn’t have a towel ready so dashed across the hall to grab one from the baby’s dresser. Just before I reached the bathroom door on the return trip, I heard TNB laugh delightedly and heartily. I stopped in my tracks and grinned, as I’d never heard him laugh when I wasn’t right there, making funny faces or tickling him under his arms. He laughed again, longer and louder. My grin widened. I peeked around the corner of the door and saw his face — eyes dancing, head tilted up adoringly, gummy smile — and saw that TNC was holding both his hands and splashing them in the water while singing a song. She echoed each of his squeals of delight. Within moments they were laughing as one with their heads close together, their so-soft skin flecked with droplets of moisture and mounds of strawberry-scented bubbles.
I leaned against the wall and hugged the towel tightly to my chest. The smile would not fade from my lips and I stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat at a mad hatter’s tea party. I felt as if I’d walked in on a secret, an awakening, and that if I so much as breathed too loudly I would break the spell and ruin the enchantment that shone in their eyes and the surface of the water.
Every single sleepless night, interrupted evening, ruined plan, event missed, futile attempt at establishing order and peace and silence…they will be consigned to the dustbins of my mind, discarded as entirely unimportant, unmemorable and unworthy. Because this is what makes it all worth it. This is what I will remember, tomorrow and for years to come. That feeling like lightning in my chest, my stomach fluttering and dropping like it did when I spurred my mother to drive “Faster! Faster!” over curves and hills on country roads years ago, creating an internal rollercoaster for my soul, ridden with the abandon and sheer joy that only a child can exude.
And so now I ride the rollercoaster once more, but the adult version. Just when I’ve dropped to the bottom and think I’ll never go back up, the sound of my children’s laughter starts me on the upward track once more, chugging happily to new heights.
