oh, these two.

if you follow me on instagram or facebook, then you've seen these pictures.  i, however, can't get enough of them.  something about these two images resonates with me & makes me come back over & over.  pretty sure they'll go up on a gallery wall in our next house.

if i could freeze time right about now, i just might.  three-almost-four year old parker is the best parker yet.  he's seriously the sweetest kid.  he's so sensitive & polite & easily pleased.  he told us he wants a "jungle animal play-doh set" for his fourth birthday but then realized he also wants a thomas train set that moves on its own.  "oh, i know!" he said, "i'll ask for the thomas trains for my five year old birthday!"  the thought of asking for more than one thing hasn't even occurred to him.  makes my heart happy.

eighteen month old elliot is at that point where he's breaking out of babyhood & on the verge of little boy-hood.  he does things that surprise us every day and expresses so much independence & personality.  one of his favorite things in the world is to get into our tupperware drawer, grab a small container & go stand by the pantry holding it up until we give him some snacks.  once you fill up his cup with goldfish, bunny crackers or fruit snacks he runs off squealing, gobbles them up & then walks back into the kitchen & puts the cup back in the drawer & then goes on his merry way.  such a goof.

i'm so grateful to be mom to these two little boys.  on days when i feel like they've won & i've lost complete control, when elliot's fighting getting dressed or parker is yelling at me from time out, i remind myself that i was chosen to be their mom for a reason.  that they were sent to me & that i am capable of raising them up the way they need to be.  i can only dream of the men these two will be some day.  i spend a lot of time thinking about how much i hope they always remain close & holy crap, what if they even went into business together one day or something.  how i hope they don't move far away from home & if they do, at least maybe it will be somewhere close together so sam & i can move there too.  i don't know why those thoughts fill my head when my days are currently consumed with diapers, goldfish & thomas trains but they do.

and i'm convinced that there is no one in the whole world who sees these little boys the way i do.  i'm overtaken by it, actually.  does every parent feel that way about their children?  that no one else could possibly feel that passionately or deeply about another person or love someone so much to the point that it kinda hurts.

i have big hopes for these two little boys.  but in these pictures, right now, they are still my babies.  they are on the verge of something big.  but in this moment, i can still wrap them in my arms, pick them up & rock them when they're down.  i kiss their "bonks",  read them silly books & sing the same goofy songs over & over with them.  these are the times where the days are long but the years are short.

it's going too fast.