Right Now.

Our right now is a beautiful thing- it's all new, everyday, with an almost 3-month old and an almost 3-year old and life moving faster than ever. It's the beginning of November now, and we're just starting to see our breath in the cold morning air when we venture outside, me holding Charlie, Henry in his pajamas, to wave goodbye to Daddy as he leaves for work. Our right now is the time of diaper changes and nursing what feels like every minute and an almost always-loud first born and a mama that always seems to say "just a little quieter, please" during naptime. There are baby hands. Oh, those baby hands. The dimples in the knuckles, the first hint of rolls around the wrist. That sweet, sweet newborn smell and the softest hair right at the nape of Charlie's neck. It's me, 31 years old, starting to feel old sometimes, laughing with Hank over the laugh lines we are beginning to see. Our right now is feeling more in love with this man I've been with for a decade now- the person who has seen me at my very worst, but somehow, someway, still loves me. It's me laying in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling, Charlie in the middle, and I think about life before, and life now, and try to imagine what life will be like. I think about being a little girl, and dreaming of what would be, and I think about being in that. And it's weird and cool and happy and sad, all at once. Right now is full of waking up in the middle of the night to that sweet baby who needs me and only me, and I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I am that person, to that baby. It's this unit of four. Our unit of four. It's our family, and the knowledge that we are building something, together. Right now is a time of change for us. Painting walls white and paring down the "too much." Simplifying. Our right now is full of so much life, with these two little people, that it's hard to remember what it was like before. And so I type this quickly while two baby monitors hum on, words coming into my head to my fingers and onto the screen, and no matter how hard I try to capture it all, it will never be enough. Words will never be able to describe the way it feels to see your husband belly-laughing with your oldest son on the floor over a silly joke they just made up, laughing so hard they're both crying. Words can't begin to capture the way Charlie smells fresh out of the bath, towel wrapped around his tiny body, that smile and that laugh and those sighs. Nothing I could ever write here will be able to bring me back to this right now, a time of babies and our first home and figuring this life out as we stumble and get back up, and stumble again. The other day while driving, Henry was in the back singing a song so loudly while Charlie looked out the window at the shapes and shadows rushing by. Hank's hands were on the wheel, tapping in time to music we had faded to the front, and I sat there in awe for a moment, thinking about how out of all the right nows I've ever had in my life, I think this one, right now, would have to be the sweetest.