Slipping Through My Fingers

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters most in my life.  Especially the people who matter most.  When my third daughter was born, I watched the movie “Mamma Mia” in the hospital.  You may love that movie or you may hate it, but what I loved was how upbeat the music is.  However, one song hit me like a Mack truck.  I just sat in the hospital and bawled.  But I forgot about that experience until the other night when I watched “Mamma Mia” again.  Guess what?  The exact same thing happened.  It is now one of my favorite songs and I really want to memorize it and sing it to my girls. 

The mother in the movie sings this song as she helps/watches her daughter get ready for her wedding.  Being a mother of three daughters, I guess I just really related to this mother’s emotions.  Here is the clip from the movie on youtube.com that is well worth watching.  Or you can watch this very poorly lit version of me and my dauther singing it together.  Either way, here are the lyrics:

Schoolbag in hand
She leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye
With an absent-minded smile
I watch her go
With a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I’m losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sleep in our eyes
Her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake
I let precious time go by
Then when she’s gone
There’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt
I can’t deny
What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
Well some of that we did
But most we didn’t
And why I just don’t know

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers –

Schoolbag in hand
She leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile

While the lyrics are beautiful by themselves, the music is even more beautiful, but then add the realism of having the movie playing out a scene between mother and daughter and it is unbelievable.

Hearing/seeing this song got me thinking about me and my girls.  I can’t tell you how often I feel like their lives are slipping through my fingers!  How often I want to freeze the picture and save it from the tricks of time.  How often I wonder why I haven’t done the things I’ve wanted to do with them.

So I recommited to spending more time FOR and WITH my daughters and less time FOR and WITH myself.  I don’t believe that motherhood requires complete sacrifice of yourself, but I do believe that it is easy to get busy doing the things that, frankly, don’t matter.  Have you ever sat down to start a project during naps but then the kids wake up and you’re not quite done, so you flip on a movie for them so you can finish, but then it ends up taking another couple hours to finish and by that point everyone has had it up to here?!  I have.  Moments like the other day leave me wondering “What’s it for?  Those were precious moments I let slip thru my fingers.”

I don’t mean that I’m going to play dress ups and house all day.  I don’t think that’s healthy either.  But there are so many ways to experience life with my girls.  Today, I spent every waking moment with my girls.  We woke up and read stories while daddy made breakfast (I love Monday mornings).  After breakfast, we got bathed, dressed, and ready.  Then we had family time where we talked about making good choices.  Next, we all played Go Fish.  Then we started chores–beds, laundry, clean up, toilet, toys, dishes, vacuuming.  Once that was all done, we colored and played hide and seek.  Next it was lunch time and nap time, which meant more story time.  After naps, we folded the laundry and then went sledding.  When we came home, we made dinner together, ate, got ready for bed, read more books, and then I kissed my sweet angels goodnight, brimming with joy for a day that didn’t slip thru my fingers. 

I know not every day can be like this, but I’m going to try to make more like this happen.  The love I feel for my girls and the love they feel from me is more valuable than anything else I could have spent my time on today.  Or tomorrow.