It is nearly midnight.

I just got home from a night filled with laughter and friends.

Craig has left the light on over the bar, where Katie’s completed homework sits, waiting to be tucked into her backpack in the morning.

Matthew’s Woody and Buzz Lightyear figures lay beside Katie’s homework, waiting for familiar 3-year-old hands.

Now I will close up my computer, lock up the house, turn off the lights and go upstairs to cover little bodies and slide into bed beside the one that waits for me.

This is joy.

These small things that make up this life that we’ve built.

Small remnants of moments lived and hints of more to come.

And I am so very grateful.

There are random moments – tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children’s rooms – when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

–Elizabeth Berg, The Art of Mending

You grasp my hand and pull me toward the booth where the hostess waits.

There is no longer any discussion of a high chair or booster seat.

You simply won’t have it.

You hoist yourself onto the seat, bounce two times for good measure.

The server greets us and you order milk, please and reach for the crayons.

Your milk arrives and I watch you lift it with hands that don’t yet reach all the way around the cold cup.

And you smile through the orange bendy straw.

I watch you and still can’t believe you’re mine.

Can’t believe how much I am not me without you.

You smile at your sister and without a word, she smiles back and hands you a red crayon, barely used.

Your eyes connect and there’s something there between the two of you that I can’t permeate.

So I watch in awe and gratitude.

Moments pass and I glance at your daddy who sees exactly what I see.

And I say to him, we’ll be okay. I know now. We’ll be more than okay.