Please stay my baby forever.

“Please stay my baby forever”

I’ve said that so many times I can’t even begin to count.

Because it’s true.

All five of them.

It’s true that I love them. I cherish them. I want them to be close. I want to protect them and to know that they are safe. I want them to hold my hand in public. To kiss me on the lips. To ask me question after nonsensical question until they pass out in my arms after a long day of swinging and swimming and bike-riding and running and… whatever the adventures of that particular day held.

I want to take them to dance and to tee-ball and to football and to lacrosse and to swim team and to gymnastics and to cross country and to more baseball and to wrestling and to choir and to church and to baseball again and to dance again and to everywhere in the world. 

I want to take long walks in the neighborhood and look at the trees and leaves and clouds and puppies and birds and cars and light poles and telephone wires and old ladies and old men and lawn mowers and this mailbox versus that mailbox and “oh, what’s that over there?!”

I want to lie in bed with them at night and tell stories and pray. I want to cradle them in my arms and sing “you are my sunshine” until they fall softly to sleep. I want to teach them how to throw a football, catch a baseball, mow the lawn, and brush their teeth. I want to have tea parties with stuffed animals and make-believe that I am the Beast to her perfectly memorized Belle. 

I want to smell that smell — you know, the baby lotion, formula, strained peas, apple juice, faint urine smell. I want to watch The Wiggles and Barney and Bear in the Big Blue House, but not the Teletubbies, because they scare me and what even are those things?

I want to celebrate the firsts and mourn the never agains, again.

I want them the stay my babies forever.

But they’re NOT babies anymore.

So, I want them to leave. Like, soon. 

All five of them.

God willing, school starts back in exactly 39 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes, and 52 seconds. Give or take. 

Can I get an amen?

Amen.