Proof They're Still Little

I know you will probably roll your eyes at me for saying so, but lately I feel like the sweet, sweet years of my kids' childhoods are slipping through my fingers.  It's going too fast. The innocence, the sweetness, the precious small child moments.  I adore them and I miss them already even though I know there are still a few to savor before they run out.  I feel like I am grasping at straws trying to appreciate them and not waste a moment of gratitude from the gifts that are my babies' little years.  It's another reason I am so grateful for the option of home schooling.  It allows me to reclaim so many more of these moments that would continue to be otherwise frittered away away from home.

Some recent "little kid" moments that I took mental snapshots of because they prove to me that not all the sweet, innocent, little years are behind us:

• This morning when the kids were up before me.  They played like angels while I layed awake a little longer in my bed. Noah speaking kindly and compromising with Anna.  Anna with her squeaky, yet animated voice following her brother's lead... mostly. They crept upstairs together to retrieve a giant cardboard box that Josh made a fort of in Anna's room.  They tried to be quiet as they moved it down the stairs, but it made such a racket. But they whispered through all the bumping and racket, so they THOUGHT they were still so quiet.  I grinned in my heart at their effort - to be quiet, and to work together moving a box bigger than the both of them. 
• Then when I finally did get up, as soon as my feet hit the floor in my bedroom above them, I heard them squeal from the living room, "Mommy's coming, hurry!" as they stumbled and scrambled to get to hiding places.  Always, always, they like to hide when they hear Mommy/Daddy come down the stairs in the morning.  They have done this for years.  The hiding places are always so predictable, but in their sweet innocence, they believe they are well hidden - under a pillow, behind the curtain, under the ottoman, beneath a blanket on the couch.  This morning, the sweetness struck me when Noah whispered to Anna as I landed downstairs, "She'll never find us."  There was a giant box in the middle of my living room floor and the lid kept bumping with their tiny, quiet movements inside it.  And still they thought I would never find them. :}  So entirely sweet.
• Noah's speech is improving in terms of s's and l's, but he still has his r's and th's to work on.  So I slurp up the sound of his sweet baby mispronunciations - frow for throw, fink for think,  fot for thought, firty for thirty, etc.
• I love how they play pretend together.  Pretend doctor, pretend mommy/daddy, pretend restaurant, pretend star wars, pretend robots, pretend tea party, pretend monsters, pretend bad guy chase, pretend horseback rides, pretend castles and armies.
• The fact that they still have stuffed animal loveys is more proof to me that their sweet baby years are not entirely long gone.  Noah still has Calvin that he sleeps on every night.  Anna has piggie and bunny and a few others.  Truthfully, she has an entourage of stuffed animals she sleeps with.   
• That they still like to watch Max and Ruby and Caillou is proof that they are still little, right?
• Anna keeps calling Jesus' crown of thorns his "pokey hat."  And she says it with such wide eyes. So innocent.
• Noah still says duper (ie- duper fast, duper hard, duper smart).  We love it and use it all the time when he is not even around.  :}  We will keep saying it forever and grinning smitten grins at the cuteness of this phrase and the downright adorable boy our Noah was and is.   

Yesterday, I watched my littles playing in the sunshine, cooperating and interacting and peacefully passing the time together without a care in the world or awareness of my spying.  It was another of many moments where I just wonder how anything in life is better. I got choked up at the love I continue to experience over those two.  They worked on their "web", they climbed the tree, the chatted randomly, they twisted and swung on the swing, they chased down the slide and back again.  Just drifting through the afternoon ... together.

I posted something sappy to this effect on FB.  "I don't mean to sound mushy, and maybe it's just the sunshine and Diet Dr. Pepper talking, but I am so in love with these two. Always. And especially when they play so well together. I stand out of sight and just watch them and hold happy tears back, they bring me such joy. It also grips me to know how special their relationship is ... because they will be in each other's lives longer than I will. What a gift they are to me."