This one Mother's Day

It was dark in Lil E's room, save for the slice of light coming through the door from the hall light. The humidifier was sending out a steady stream of "shhhhh" out and over us. I was singing, as I do every night at bedtime, and he was stretched out in front of me.

He pinches my elbow while I sing. It's strange, I know. But it's one of those self-soothing baby quirks that hasn't faded away just yet. It means that I get to wrap my arm around him while he drifts off and I don't worry about the calm that it brings.

Sometimes, but not every night, he scoots back into me, so his head nestles in under my chin and his body, seemingly always in a growth spurt, stretches down my own. His little feet tuck under my legs. Tonight, as he did that, he sighed and then his whole body relaxed.

But I, his mother now for five years and eight months, held my breath.

These nights will not last much longer, I thought, pulling him in a bit closer.

I kept on with the words to a song my mother sang to me on nights like these more than 30 years ago.

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vines

I'll taste your strawberries and drink your sweet wine

A million tomorrows shall all pass away

Ne'er I'll forget all the joy that was mine today.

"Mommy," Lil E interrupted in a loud whisper, "A million tomorrows is a lot!"

"Yes, it is," I said and continued singing.

What I was thinking was that those million tomorrows pass by quickly, and even though we know that they will, it suddenly strikes us with some surprise. We find ourselves there, a million days older, wondering where the time went and how much of it we really have left.

It's not depressing. It just is. It's the stuff that happens while we're exhausted and over-scheduled, wiping noses and laughing at knock-knock jokes for the 400th time, teaching kids how to skip and making one more grilled cheese sandwich with a side of ketchup and applesauce. It's what spins past us while we are lost in those cuddling moments and sneaking out of the room  as not to wake the child and sneaking back in to make sure the child is still breathing.

Tonight, the thought that this precious ritual of ours that many parenting books would say takes too much time each night and has gone on for too many years could soon end, got to me.

I felt like I reached into the velvet bag that I thought was full of Scrabble tiles, only to realize that just a few letters were rattling around in there.

As the song went on, I had this clear vision in my head of taking each tile in my fingers before choosing one, then carefully, thoughtfully placing it on just the right spot on the board.

I like that metaphor, the one of building words out of letters, growing a child and a life out of small pieces of time and space and experiences. I also know that it doesn't really work like that. It's a lovely thought, a sweet intention that will be interrupted by an unexpected meltdown or a work project that is calling to me from my laptop or a spring flu or a thousand questions about boogers or dinosaurs or when he'll see his daddy next.

Is it possible to hold each night, each time I can feel my boy's breath slow into sleep as if it is precious, or at least as much as I can in that moment? I hope so. Some nights will be a Q, others an A, some a divinely placed X. I guess it is just my job -- or privilege or opportunity -- to use it the best way I am able right then.

All of these nights and months and years of mothering have not been easy. But they have been mine. They have been ours together. Try as I may to keep every brilliant moment captured in pictures, videos, posts, and my memory, it's crazy how often it comes down to a sigh, a song, a pinch, a question, a realization. And how it seems so clear, mostly in the dark, often in the near-silence.

This kid, this moment, this way of mothering, this one tile, I want to hold forever. It's OK that it's not possible. Just feeling that when I really, really get that it will change -- and soon -- is plenty of joy for me today.

Happy Mother's Day to

the many women who have mothered me with their encouragement, quick wit, bravery and love

my grandmothers, who I am so blessed to have in my life

my own mother, who I love beyond measure

to the countless women who do what they do without ever getting a rose or card or acknowledgment.

I honor you all today.