These Years

Wednesday was a glorious day spent... at home. Sometimes the body and soul just needs a day to stay.
Kaeley and Nathan worked on Math as they ate their breakfast. Kaeley, who is highly distract-able when Math is not riveting her attention, continued to skip-count by sevens for at least another hour.
It's no wonder it took her so long. Simon was in his favorite imaginary world of Star Wars. This time he was Luke. He would run to Princess Leia, who was, at the time, skip-counting-Kaeley. She, of course, would embrace him and play along. Then he would decide to "help" her do Math. She would set him up with paper and colored pencils. When he lost interest in that she would exclaim, "Oh no, Luke! Darth Vader is coming!" Luke would scamper under the table, and wait for a few minutes (while Kaeley squeezed in a few more Math problems) until the imaginary Darth Vader was close enough for combat, at which point Simon would bounce onto his feet with fingers waving and pointing in the air with sounds of, "Jing! Jink. Jing!" He would run off and leave Kaeley laughing only to reappear as Luke a few minutes later and the whole skit would be acted out again.
I will spare you from the details when I tell you that a diaper I thought was mostly "clean" was in fact... well... not. And that morning I stepped in poop. However, being in the month of Thanksgiving, I was thankful for socks... and vinegar.
As I cleaned stink out of the grooves of linoleum I heard Alynna singing in the playroom. She sat alone, just her and some plastic dolls, and she sang in her squeaky five-year old voice, "Yawyeh. Yawyeh. We love to shout your name oh Lawd!"
After Simon (and my foot) was all cleaned up, he ran with pitter-pattering footsied feet into the dining room to once again kiss Princess Leia all over her face and shout victory over Vader. This time he ran off yelling about Darth Maul.
Kaeley laughed out loud, bent over counting sevens, the number of perfection, and sighed, "I'm going to miss these years."
And while I want to say, "You have no idea." I think she really does.