Way back in December, I asked if anyone had any questions for me. Sage (my new best friend) asked: “Relate a wonderful moment you had with each of your children, individually.” Okay, not really in the form of a question, but we won’t take off points for that.

Honestly, it took me so long to finally answer it because I had to think. And I had to find a moment, sad to say. Maybe there was a moment, but it was big enough or noticable enough to me, but anyway.

Emma is easy. I could pick at least one moment every single day. Why, just yesterday, she brought me a piece of notepaper off the fridge, and a pen. “Write it for me, Mommy!” she insisted. She wanted me to write down on the paper, “I love Mommy and Daddy” just so she could “read” it back to us. She beamed. Every so often I look at her, and I take such delight in just the ordinary things she does. It’s so wonderful.

Meaghan is a little harder, partly because she is so quiet, but in the past week, she nonchalantly handed me a cookie. A chocolate cookie fresh from the oven that she made herself. This is quintessentially Meaghan. Quiet and unassuming, ready to ease up beside you and love you anyway, even with chocolate. And then a couple night after that, we were watching tv, and she curled up next to me and cuddled me, saying nothing. Just watching.

Now Sarah. Sarah is easy, but sometimes the special moments are hard to pin down. Sarah expresses her emotions and feeling so easily, so abundantly and so often. She tells me every little thought that passes through her brain pretty much whenever she thinks it. I wonder where she gets that from?
She’s 13 and she will still fling an arm around me and sorta kinda hug me, as long as people aren’t around. She’s comfortable enough to tease me about my height and hers (she’s about even), and give me a hard time with some smart answers back at me, delivered with a smile. I think that’s wonderful.

Addison is the one that held me back from answering. He’s been trying to be a “real man” for ages and some things don’t come easily for him. Stiff upper lip and all. As he has once put it, “You know I love you, but do I have to show it?” and then he had to leave the room because he had expressed himself and couldn’t face me any more.
But the other night, it was just me, Emma and him. Emma fell asleep early. Addison and I talked, or rather, Addison talked and I listened with rapt attention. He talked about his favorite political satire shows, news stories from CNN, US-Canadian politics, his novel he’s writing and the vast epic-ness of it. And I stood there and listened, and watched his face light up, and noted where he found humour and irony and unfairness, I thought to myself, he’s just wonderful. He’s so smart and articulate and handsome and I just don’t know how that happened.
And then the other afternoon he approached me with his rough plans for getting a job and going to college, I was proud of him all over again. I could just burst.

And those are what I think of, what I hold on to through the days of eye-rolling, ignoring me, voicing their displeasure (they are allowed to disagree with whatever we say, but what we say still goes), stomping their feet, arguing in pointless circles, taking a tone or attitude with thier voice, and running up the stairs to avoid screaming at me.

That somehow, thorugh all that, the ups and downs and emotional roller coaster, it’s all worth it.

Addison is working off a CD-ROM for chemisty, and he’s having an awful time answering some of the questions. Not that he doesn’t know the answers, it’s hard to write the chemical equations in a text box! Anyone have any tips?

And no, the CD “manual” and the website don’t have any info on this at all.