Four Hugs a Day....

We went to see Vika's kindergarten show the other night and the chorus of one of the songs they sang was:

Four hugs a day,
That's the minimum.
Four hugs a day,
NOT the maximum.

Good advice - and when sung by 5 year olds, you find yourself looking at the kids and hoping all of them get at least four hugs a day. I'm sure there are some that don't and that breaks my heart. Then I think about Vika and Eamon and how few hugs they probably received the first years of their lives. Now they get so many that they can't count them. We're so thankful that Jenni found them and they are now home with us. What a gift.

I watched Vika on stage, with her ever-present tiara, and it brought me back to my own kids being that young and their school shows. How I loved being one of the parents-with-a-camera in the audience. So proud that I had a child on the stage. Misty-eyed through the whole performance. Watching their eyes light up and seeing them smile when they finally spotted me from the stage. It's such an awesome responsibility to be a parent - to know that you are helping them shape who they will become. You're a role model for them, the disciplinarian, the support system, the "keeper of the Cheerios" (as one country song puts it), the person they think can do no wrong - at least until they reach their teen years. And you worry about failing them, about them seeing that you do have faults and you don't know everything, about not keeping them safe, about not always being able to take away their pain or sadness. You wonder if they have any idea how much you love them, if they will ever understand that feeling you have deep in your heart that makes you sit and watch them while they sleep, if they can even begin to understand how your insides turn upside down with the touch of their little sticky fingers on your face.

Another song Vika's class sang was about thanking their parents for giving them wings. Complete with gestures. As I sat there with tears in my eyes, I kept thinking how much I miss my kids at that age. How I spent so many years of my life "giving them wings" when what I really wanted was for them to stay young and be my kids forever! How I still dream about them being young, waiting anxiously for me to come home, running to me with open arms. I am thoroughly enjoying my children as adults - they are wonderful, responsible people with great senses of humor who are now married with families of their own. The bond is strong, but there are still times when I miss being "Mommy" - the keeper of the Cherrios.

Now, looking at Vika and Eamon, I think about how much they've grown just since we've known them. How we're all helping to shape their future. And how they will also grow wings and some
day fly on their own.