Butterfly kisses

I told Kaitlyn what butterfly kisses were the other night. She gave me one. The next night I sat on the couch with Hazel. A little sigh and a breath fluffed the hair on my neck as she laid in my arms. What is a day in my life without Nick catching me in the kitchen for a long sweet hug and a profession of his love for me. Eden's bubbling giggle gives light to my day. They bless me by just being here. Jody and I sometimes moan and groan about parenthood for days on end but then those beautiful moments remind us that we are here in an amazing world with amazing children and everything we have is a gift.
My life is like being a gymnast. I balance, I roll, I jump, I do laundry, I cook for my first grader's Thanksgiving Feast in January. Okay, maybe that doesn't have anything to do with gymnastics. I can't make my life into an olympic event. It's a journey in itself though. I sat holding Hazy while the girls did rock climbing at the Erie Community Center the other day and finally another lady thought she had me pegged. "So, you have three girls and that little boy right?" It was as she asked me, that I connected the dots myself and realized I looked like I had a zoo in tow just like a woman who was there with her kids when I arrived. I had seen a mother there with a passel of kids and spent a few minutes counting before I asked, "Do you have four boys?" "Yes" she replied. I couldn't help the next words (a few people in this world are nodding their heads in sympathy for me right now) "and they're all yours?" "Yes" she replied with a smile (perhaps a little forced). Why? Only the Lord or the devil knows why such things fall off my lips.