I spent a couple of hours cleaning and catching up on laundry and business emails this morning. Bogged down and concentrating on wrapping it all up before lunch so we can head downtown this afternoon and surprise Jacob at school and take him out for dinner or something fun. Something different.
I went up to find the kids to tell them lunch was ready. They go off and play for hours alone now, creating fantastical play worlds or painstakingly building Lego villages or whatever captures their imaginations. They're independent.
I found them in the new guest room, the room that used to be the master bedroom before we moved to the back bedroom. The radio was on, playing classical music. Ruthie was in her ballerina costume and Henry was wearing Jacob's very best suit jacket, a tie knotted in a droopy bow around his neck. They were dancing in each other's arms. I stood and watched quietly as Henry spun Ruth around and then struggled to dip her as he has seen Jacob do to me.
And then I watched as the song faded to an end and Henry moved in very close to Ruth and put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her nose and smiled. As he has seen Jacob do to me.
That makes it worth it.
