Last night I finished cleaning up in the kitchen and decided to vacuum and mop. This does two things, it gives me a mid-week refresher for the house and also forces me to get in some extra steps and movement before I sit down after the kids go to bed. When I was done, I wandered into the kids’ bedroom to see that they were snuggled on either side of Ben while he read Paddington. Not wanting to climb all the way across Sofie’s day bed to sit next to her, I sat on the edge, catercorner to them and watched the scene unfold in front of me. This is often where I find myself, on the edge of a scene as if I’m the observer and my family or friends are in the film I’m watching.

Sometimes, this place feels lonely. I am never quite part of the moment, always just on the outskirts, always peering in. But this place has its advantages. It gives me a chance to carefully write to memory the details of moments I know will pass too quickly. I get to study and hope that my brain will never let go of these details.

Last night I watched as Henry continued to move in closer to Ben until he was on top of him, staring out at the book from Ben’s chest. His long, red eyelashes brushed the tops of his cheeks as he looked down at the pages of the book. He loves to calmly watch and pay close attention for a while and then batter you with questions about what’s going on in the images. He wanted to know what a wheelbarrow was and why Paddington needed it. Between questions, he would look up at Ben inquiringly with a look of complete adoration and then back down at the page.

Sofie sat with her legs crossed at her ankles, clutching her grey blankie and her ballerina elephant shoulder to shoulder with Ben, focused on the book, but not fidgeting or pushing personal boundaries or encroaching on Ben’s space or forcing him to hold the book up higher to see the words on the pages as Henry does. She was prim, proper, and settled. She’s not usually so settled, she’s usually running around, doing handstands on the walls, and flinging herself off surfaces that move backward when said flinging happens.

The light in the room was flat. I wish I could say it was golden and streaming through the windows, but it wasn’t. It was doing that in the living room, the golden and the streaming. The living room was being bathed in the gorgeous west coast evening light that I will be sad to leave, and there was a part of me that wanted to walk out and pick up my knitting or get back to the book I was listening to earlier. I wanted to pick my family up and take them to the couch so that they could enjoy the sun as well. But they were comfortable where they were, surrounded by blankets and quilts. The room was cool, they were calm, and I didn’t want to miss out on a moment of stillness that is so rare in our chaotic life. I wished that I could be planted between them, having Sofie’s little hands touch my arms and feel the weight of Henry’s head on my shoulder, but then I wouldn’t have been able to see the whole scene. I wouldn’t have been able to see the way that Ben fit between them so perfectly, his body and mind seemed to have nowhere else to be. He’s good like that. He’s good at being present.

When the kids were in bed and asleep (which actually took quite a while after this because they thought it would be hilarious to run out of the room giggling and have to be picked up and put back in bed and then decided it was a good time for more hugs and then the potty and then water) I stood at the window of my bedroom and looked out over the little downtown we live in and watched as the last glimpses of light disappeared over the dusty green tops of the trees, and I let all the emotions of the day wash over me.

I thought about how I used to hold Henry at that window and rock him back and forth while singing “Green Eyes” by Coldplay to him, and he would put his head on my shoulder and eventually get heavy, and his chubby little arm would drop, and that’s how I had to put him to sleep for such a long time. He loves, to this day, looking out over the city lights. And I thought back to when Sofie would nap in the middle of my bed in the bright daylight while I worked and how I would eventually end up sitting on the floor next to the bed as she sprawled out as much as she could.

This apartment holds so many memories for me, so many moments where I stood on the edge and just watched as my kids grew from tiny babies to walking, running, playing, and talking beings with their own personalities.

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