Where does the time go?

How did we go from being the world’s most loving couple . . . to . . . this?

I do love you, babe—to the moon and back.

I also love our kids, our home, our adventures, the life we have created, the life we arecreating.

The “we” moments are now regularly plus one, two, three babies? And perhaps a neighborhood kid or two?

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It’s work, school, daycare, what’s for dinner, work, clean, tubby time, bedtime., followed by PURE EXHAUSTION.

There is nothing easy about this phase, my love.

But that’s what it is, a phase.

A phase that will pass.

And from what every parent on the other side says, it will go far too fast.

So tonight, when we are in the middle of it, the downright ugly—in the middle of the loud, the chaos, the yelling, the knee scrapes, the I want a lollipop, I want Goldfish, I need a drink, no I didn’t want that juice, thiiiissss one.

When we are knee-deep, feeling like the water is rising around us, when we are counting down the minutes until the clock reads eight . . . look at me, look me in the eyes, see my love for you, feel it, drink it in, soak it up, let it fill your soul.

The way it did before all of this.

Before the kids, the house, the business, the family, the pandemic, the dishes, the laundry, the spills, the dirt, the endless to-dos.

ALL OF IT.

What I need from you tonight, my love, is to feel my love for you.

Then.

Now.

Tomorrow.

Ten years from now.

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As our home is filled with noise, chaos, excitement, tension and as the halls grow quiet and calm . . . remember.

Remember the way I looked at you when we first met.

Remember the excitement I felt every time you took my hand in yours.

Remember our first kiss.

Remember dreaming of the life we had yet to build.

Remember that I am absolutely over the moon for you.

What I need from you tonight . . .

Is just you.

All of you.

Forever.

Originally published on the author’s blog