When she lays sideways against me, she usually swings her legs over my knees. They dangle. They dangle because she is tiny and even the simple act of laying across me is monumental to her. Her limbs looking so very small in relation to mine.

To me it’s heaven. Her body nestled across mine, while her brother rests his head on my shoulder. Everyone breathing in unison and calm together.

This is how we sleep from time-to-time. Not so often anymore, but often enough for me to realize it’s nearly gone.

Sometimes, when I lay on my side, she can still curl to spoon me. But her spoon involves her tiny feet against my thighs and her head in my neck. She still fits there. But barely. Just barely.

He is another story. He can’t fit there ever again. Now he wraps his arms around me like a little man, and uses one hand to pet my back, or pet my arm. He dotes in a way where before, he wanted the doting on himself.

Now when he rolls over, he’s careful to not touch my breast, instead choosing to lay a hand on my belly. This one is harder for me. More emotional of a change. Before his head would lay nowhere but my breast. Not anymore. He is embarrassed. He is aware.

It breaks my heart.

It doesn’t happen so often anymore, but when they are both at my side, sleeping with limbs strewn across mine and breathing on my arm it’s almost as if time doesn’t move, and I am at peace.

I can hear their breath.

They aren’t darting off to play, or at school, or in the yard.

It’s the one time of day I have no fear for them, or for myself. They are with me. They are safe. We are together.

This morning as I awoke with feet in my face and a sweaty head on my shoulder, I realized it was just a moment away from being gone. We are but days or months from being done with wanting to lay near Mom. Needing to lay near Mom. Able to lay near Mom.

They both barely fit any longer…not just in size.

It’s nearly gone. Time is so very short. Those tiny feet now push away instead of pushing on my thighs. That once small head now changes his mind and goes back to his own bed, full of independence and assured and able to comfort himself.

I laugh now at myself. Wanting not so long ago for them to learn to sleep in their own beds. Willing it. I needed the break, or the space, or the freedom at night. Forgetting one of the mantra’s I would tell others when they looked-down on our co-sleeping habits, “it won’t last forever.”

And here we are. Forever. And I’d like it to last just a bit longer.

Please.

The flexibility and agility of my children annoys me.

I’m watching my daughter leisurely sprawl herself across an ottoman at my mother’s home – leg balancing here, another there. Flipping around like a fish. Rolling from tip-toe to heel.

It drives me crazy, because I’m pretty sure that even as a child I couldn’t do more than stand straight so as not to fall.

I was the “awkward” one in ballet class.

Doing simple things like laying on my stomach to play never seemed as comfortable as the other kids made it. Easy. Natural.

I was never, necessarily a huge clutz. But I was never going to be described as graceful. My grandfather used to call me a “claud.”

I think that means “bigger” than a clutz.

My daughter and son are not that way. At least, not that I can tell…yet. My son will jump around and over and through the house like a gazelle while my daughter flitters around with these tiny feet you can barely hear.

And stomp tromp slosh comes Mom.

Maybe grace is overrated.

But I notice that over time my acceptance of my body’s limitations has wavered with my children’s …grace.

Was I ever like this? Is this what my mother saw as she looked at me? Could it be?…

…no, I think this Claud couldn’t have possibly been mistaken for the magical kids floating in my home. Graceful, sprite-like, and angelic.

Ok, maybe not angelic all the time…but you know what I mean.

They are running through the house looking for a missing chick. Never mind the missing chick is plastic, stay with me here…they are RIGHT NOW doing that thing they do, dancing around each other with toys and games and laughter.

Watching them is like an exercise in readying for disaster. I’m waiting for them to crash. To slam into eachother, to stub a toe, to fall and cry.

But I’m noticing more often then not…they are not me. They don’t tromp around the house or bump their tiny shins into sides of tables.

No…right now…they are dancing and giggling. Full of grace.